Publication Account
Date 2002
Event ID 585450
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/585450
HY22 6 TAFT ('Knowe of Taft')
HY/28362226
Probable ground-galleried broch in Birsay and Harray which was partly exposed by Mr D. Stephen shortly before 1882 [2]. The ruins were inside a mound 3.1 m (10 ft.) high and there were small square stone cists in the earth around its base. Part of the wall of the supposed broch was found, with a lintelled passage running along it; this was traced for about 10 m (30 ft.), after which the structure was in ruins, probably because of stone robbing. The description of the “passage” suggests that the broch may have been an example of the ground-galleried type.
Finds recovered during these operations included a fragment of a probable armlet of blue glass with white stripes. There were also 2 small pieces of red Roman Samian pottery, some sherds of native ware, a small clay crucible, several fragments of haematite, pieces of querns (presumably rotary but type not specified). These finds seems to have come from the broch ruins rather than the cists.
Sources: 1. OS card HY 22 SE 8: 2. Watt 1882, 449-50: 3. RCAHMS 1946, 2, no. 15, 16; 4 Hedges et al. 1987, 54-5.
E W MacKie 2002
