One of the most perplexing remnants of the Norse occupation of the islands are the Hogback tombstones.

Found mainly in Northern England and Southern Scotland, the hogback is a three-dimensional house-shaped structure that seem to have been a short-lived monument introduced in the tenth-century by Norse-Irish settlers in North Yorkshire.

Most hogbacks have Christian connections but other than that we know little more.

Of the five hogbacks recorded in Orkney, only four remain and these are likely to be of a considerably later date and are more than likely copies of stones that were encountered in the south.