The Broch of Gurness is an outstanding surviving example of an Iron Age settlement that is unique to northern Scotland. However, for centuries it remained hidden under a large massive, grassy mound on the northeast coast of Mainland, the main island in Orkney, the group of islands situated off the north coast of Scotland. One day in 1929, Orcadian poet and antiquarian Robert Rendall (1898–1967), was sketching on the mound, which overlooks Eynhallow Sound and was known as the Knowe o' Aikerness. The leg of his stool sank into the ground and this prompted him to carefully remove some earth and stones which revealed the top of a staircase leading down into the mound.
