32967: VALTOS SCHOOL, LEWIS – BURIAL (Undated)

Summary:

BURIAL (Undated)
Site of rich Viking Age female burial found 1917

Location:

NB 0855 3635

Full description:

NB03NE 1 0855 3635.

(NB 0855 3635) Viking Burial found AD 1915 (NAT)
OS 6″map, (1965)

A 9th century Viking burial, accompanied by ornaments, including two tortoise brooches, and weapons, was found by school-children beneath a small sand mound about 150 yards west of Valtos school in April 1915. The burial lay 1 1/2′ to 2′ below the original surface and was exposed by the cutting away of the mound by cultivation.
The finds were presented to the Nicholson Institute, Stornoway, in whose museum there is also a pin of a bronze penannular brooch found near the site and which presumably belongs to the burial.
A belt mound was subsequently donated in 1934 to NMAS.
D J Macleod 1916; Proc Soc Antiq Scot 1934.

The site marked on OS 6″map,(1965) is incorrect, being on a very steep slope below the road. It is apparently derived from the description “150 yds to the W of the school” which is obviously an approximation. The find was apparently made in an area centred NB 085 363, in a cultivated patch about 60.0m to the N of the road, and to the S of the alleged dun (NB03NE 9), but there is no local knowledge of the exact find spot.
Visited by OS (R L) 27 June 1969.

no.14
This is the approximate location of a Norse burial discovered in 1915. The finds indicate a female burial of probably 9th century date. The site cannot now be located. The site was originally disturbed by agricultural activity No agriculture is now carried out in the area. There are numerous stoney patches in the area, some of which may be former clearance cairns, and others being collapse from the erosion terraces above. It is possible that such features now maks the position of the burial and any features which may be associated with it.
Armit 1992, 46

Local tradition has it that a male burial ‘in armour with a helmet’ was found in the same place in 1917, and not reported.
MML 21.11.2000

References:

1915-16. ‘An account of a find of ornaments of the Viking time from Valtos, Uig, in the Island of Lewis’, Proc Soc Antiq Scot. Part No 50. 184 fig. 1
1933-4. ‘Donations to and purchases for the Museum and Library’, Proc Soc Antiq Scot. Part No 68. 97 429, fig. 5; 430, fig. 1
1994. ‘Archaeological field survey of the Bhaltos (Valtos) peninsula, Lewis’, Proc Soc Antiq Scot. Part No 124. No.14, 82, 83

Acknowledgement:

Information provided by Western Isles Council Sites & Monuments Record, January 2006.