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Note

Date 23 February 2015 - 13 December 2016

Event ID 1044121

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Note

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1044121

The Brough of Deerness is a cliff-girt promontory that was once linked to the mainland on the SW by a narrow neck, though this has long since eroded into a deep cleft. Extending along the broad SW or landward flank of the promontory above this cleft there is a thick wall, which is generally considered to be the vallum monasterii or boundary work of the monastic site that occupies the summit area; excavation in 1878 revealed an outer stone face to an earthen core (Anderson 1881, 101-4), and there was probably an entrance opposite the eroded neck. The interior measures about 140m from NE to SW by 70m transversely (0.94ha), and is covered with traces of thirty or so rectangular and bow-side Norse buildings around the well-known stone chapel, which had itself replaced a timber predecessor (Morris and Emery 1986). This was latterly a noted place of pilgrimage (Macfarlane 1908, iii, 318; Wallace 1700, 69), but the possibility that the monastic site occupied an earlier fort was first suggested in 1774 by George Low (1879, 55-6), and the most recent campaign of excavations has shown that the visible Norse buildings overlie Pictish middens, while unstratified finds include a copper-alloy zoomorphic mount of Roman date (Barrett 2011).

Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 13 December 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC2840

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