Field Visit
Date 7 August 1929
Event ID 1173807
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1173807
This broch is on low ground at the W. extremity of the village of St. Mary's, on the N. bank of the Loch of Ayre and on the W. side of the main public road to Kirkwall. It was excavated in 1901-2 (see PSAS, xlviii (1913-4) pp. 31-51) and most of the masonry then exposed is still visible, including the complete outline of the broch itself to a height of about 3 ft. 6 in., as well as traces of subsidiary buildings outside. The former has an over-all diameter of some 58ft., with a wall thickness of about 14 ft. The entrance, which is on the E., is 3 ft. wide at the outer end but slightly more at the inner one, and there are checks for two doors, the outer one having also a bar-hole. In the thickness of the wall on the N. side of the entrance passage, and apparently entered by an opening between the outer and inner door checks, there has been a cell or ‘guard-chamber’, which measures approximately 6 ft. square, but is now partly broken down, as are also the remains of a stair within the wall on the S.
Internally the structure has been cleared to floor-level, leaving the inner face of the broch wall visible to a height of about 4 ft. 6 in. Their regularity of this face in the N.E. segment is an unusual feature. Just within the entrance the excavators uncovered a group of partition slabs, but these have been more or less displaced. They also mention that ‘Opposite the entrance, near the further side of the interior court, a well was found, in which water was still standing, and the remains of two steps lead down to the water surface. The well was roughly 2 feet square, and was partly roofed in with a flat slab’ (ibid, 34). The ‘outbuildings’ are fragmentary and cannot yet be linked up to form a complete plan. The relics recovered during the excavation included two iron spear-heads, a saddle-quern, several portions of rotary querns, some worked pieces of red-deer antlers, and many other characteristic objects. There were ‘numerous traces of charcoal’-some from green wood both in the broch and in the outbuildings, and ‘extensive traces of peat ash’ in part of the latter.
RCAHMS 1946, visited 7 August 1929.
