Archaeology Notes

Event ID 641847

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/641847

HU25SW 5 2341 5398.

( HU 2340 5398 ) Brough (O.E.)

OS 6" map, Shetland, 2nd ed., (1903)

The remains of a broch, occupying the whole surface of an islet.

All that can be seen from the shore (the site was inaccessible) is part of the outer wallface, rising to a height of three or four courses above the debris on the south side. (A description by Anderson, quoting the Rev J Russel: [Anderson 1899]).

The Statistical Account (OSA) records that there was an artificial causeway leading to it from the shore, in a serpentine form 'and somewhat under water'. (OSA 1798).

No trace of this causeway, however, was detected.

An unpublished excavation was carried out some years before 1931 (Spence 1899)

RCAHMS 1946. Visited 1931

Not a broch but a dun, occupying an islet in Burga Water. The crudely-built, dry-stone wall varies from 2.5m thick at the S entrance, down to 1.0m thick in the SE, and survives to a height of 1.2m. Judging by the amount of tumble lying outside the dun, the walls cannot have been more than 3.0 m high originally. The area enclosed measures 11.0m E-W by 10.5m N-S ad both faces of the wall are visible for most of its perimeter: in the SE steep rock outcrop has been utilised as part of the defences. The walls have been built up at a later date, un- doubtedly after the pre-1931 excavation. Soundings around the island failed to locate a causeway.

Visited by OS(NKB) 20 June 1968

Photo & Survey Diagram.