Note
Date 16 February 2015 - 31 May 2016
Event ID 1044188
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Note
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1044188
The remains of the broch on a precipitous promontory NW of Ness Head stand behind what has probably been a stout wall with an external ditch, which bar access to the promontory across its neck on the SW. The wall, which has been drawn across the neck in a shallow arc, stood some 1.8m high when it was exposed in excavation by Sir Francis Tress Barry (Anderson 1901, 143) and has an entrance towards its SE end. Little trace of the probable ditch can be seen, partly because it is overlain to the NW of the entrance by later structures which extend NW beyond the eroded cleft of the geo running in from the sea on this side. Immediately outside the wall on the SE of the entrance Barry uncovered steps leading down into a slab-covered well 2.9m deep. The broch itself has been heavily eroded, but measures about 6.6m in diameter within a wall up to 4.6m in thickness, with possibly two entrances, that on the E with a guard chamber, and also another chamber in the wall on the NE. There are traces of buildings between the broch and the outer wall across the promontory on the WSW, and also on the seaward side on the ENE. The promontory has evidently been heavily eroded, and the interior behind the outer wall may originally have been considerably larger; it currently measures about 68m from ENE to WSW by up to 14m transversely (0.08ha), and there are traces of a low bank extending around its lip on the seaward end beyond the broch. The finds from the excavations reported by Anderson are: three quernstones, several stone vessels, a sandstone ingot mould, two bronze ingots, a bronze pin and links from a bronze chain (see also Proc Soc Antiq Scot 43 (1908-9), 15-16).
Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 31 May 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC2818
