Publication Account
Date 2002
Event ID 586117
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/586117
ND49 1 BURRAY EAST ('East Broch of Burray')
ND/48979881
A solid-based broch on Burray at the foot of a slope next to the sea shore (visited 16/7/63 and 13/7/1985). The name “Burray comes from the Norse Borgar Ey, or “fort island” [9], and in earlier times the approach to it across the water from the north must have been dominated by the two ruined broch mounds overlooking the Sound. For convenience, and as with ND29 2 below, the name of the site has been shortened here to ‘Burray East’.
The site was originally a huge mound some 6.10 m (20 ft.) high [6] and has suffered more than most among a class of monuments notorious for having undergone incompetent exploration. It stands on what seems to be an artificial platform of earth next to the rocky north shore of the island and about 3.1 - 6.1 m (10-20 ft.) above it.
The mound was opened up in 1852 and 1853 by James Farrer, M. for Durham, on a visit to Orkney and "cost much labour and expense" [2]; the process was excessively destructive even by the standards of the time. This was only the second broch ever dug into systematically with archaeological intent -- a few years after Howe of Hoxa not far away (ND49 4) -- and the sad wreckage to which this magnificent structure (comparable to Midhowe and Gurness when it was first exposed) has been reduced can be judged by comparing the 1985 photograph of the interior with the cross section drawn after the excavation. No consolidation seems to have been undertaken so that, whereas sites like Burrian on North Ronaldsay (HY75 1) and Hoxa on South Ronaldsay (ND49 4) still stand fairly clear of debris, Burray East has filled up again with its own rubble. It is surely a prime candidate for being re-cleared and consolidated.
The mound was soon found to contain the ruins of a broch and this was partly surrounded by an earth rampart (which presumably may contain a stone wall) on the landward side. George Petrie tactfully explains that Farrer "having little time to spare, endeavoured, by making excavations at various points, instead of tracing the walls throughout, to obtain as much information in regard to the building as the circumstances would allow." [2] He actually had a short segment of the massive broch wall pulled down and, on doing this "a cell was broken into". This was the guard cell on the right of the main entrance. The present gap in the wall facing NE, and which looks like a ruined entrance, is in fact the break in the broch wall referred to.
Farrer came back in 1854 with Petrie, who records, with commendable restraint, that "I ... suggested the propriety of leaving the building undisturbed, and of the careful removal of rubbish, both outside and inside." Petrie himself returned in 1866 with some workmen to clear up some outstanding problems [9, 96].
The entrance passage faces E, parallel to the shore and about 5 m to the left of the break and where the wall still stands reasonably high; being at present invisible it is presumably still partly intact under debris. Judging from the cross section the passage stood 4.27 m (14 ft.) high when it was first exposed, but this includes the well preserved chamber over the entrance which rose to scarcement level; the actual passage lintels were c. 1.83 m above its floor. It was 4.58 m (15 ft.) long and from 1.37 - 1.53 m (4.5 ft. - 5 ft.) wide with two guard cells between the two sets of door-checks.
The outermost door is 1.68m (5 ft. 6 in.) from the outside and had only one recessed check; the inner was 3.20 m (10 ft. 6 in.) from the exterior) and was composed of two huge flagstones set on end and projecting from the wall with a bar-hole and socket behind these. Two opposed guard chambers opened off the passageway with their doorways between the two sets of door-checks. The sills of both the cell doors appear to be raised about 60 cm (2 ft.) above the floor of the entrance passage. Each guard cell was a fine square, corbelled chamber with a roof apex about 3.20 m (10 ft. 6 in.) above its floor. The cell on the left seems to have a cupboard or aumbry in its inner wall.
A void or chamber 3.66 m (12 ft.) long was above the entrance lintels which had gaps, or "meurtrieres", between them [5, 75]. No lintels are shown roofing this upper chamber but they had presumably once been at the level of the scarcement, itself 12 ft. (3.66 m) above the floor (below). Both Petrie’s and Dryden’s cross sections show clearly that the chamber extended as far forward as just before the outermost door-check; in fact this check seem to extend upwards to form the front wall of the upper chamber, an unusual arrangement. This outer wall is only 90 cm (3 ft.) thick and must have rested on a massive lintel (though Petrie’s cross section seems to show this as flat).
The present condition of this entrance passage is unknown; it may well still be partly lintelled under the debris, though the chamber above seems likely to have collapsed further. An underground passage leading to a deep covered well was found just outside the main entrance [7, fig. 372].
The interior was evidently cleared down to a recognisable floor level although no details are given about this. On the interior wall face was a scarcement ledge (of which there is now no trace) 30 cm (12 in.) wide and 3.66 m (12 ft.) above the floor; it was formed half by projecting slabs and half by recessing the wall above 15 cm (6 in.) back from that below [5, 74].
Two other mural cells were in the wall, at 11 and 3 o'clock. The former is a short rectangle in plan with a fine, corbelled beehive roof, the upper part of which is still visible. The stone lintel over the doorway to this cell had cracked at some early period of the broch's use and had been propped up with a vertical stone slab. This is a fairly clear indication that the wall of the building was once very much higher and heavier than now.
The cell at 3 o'clock was not cleared out but was evidently a long rectangle in plan, concentric with the curvature of the broch's wall and un-roofed; its doorway is about 1.22 m (4 ft.) above the floor. There is apparently an manuscript source which says that this cell was roofed with a corbelled dome [9, 96].
The doorway at 9 o'clock led to an intra-mural stairway rising to the right, and to a long stair-foot guard cell, or lobby, leading off to the left; the sill of this door is about 1.52 m (5 ft.) above the broch floor. The stair was not discovered by Farrer, but by Petrie in 1866 when he discovered twenty steps; he had suspected its existence after the initial clearance of the site and came back specifically to look for it [5, 74, footnote]. In 1864 he had got into the lobby or guard cell at the foot of the stair, which had previously been inaccessible, and found great numbers of animal bones stuck into the crevices in the wall. He pulled some out and found all had been broken and split as if to extract the marrow.
The clearing of the stairway revealed a gallery on the wall head, and part of this is still visible at 10 o'clock and from 2-4 o'clock, the outer face being exposed. From Petrie and Dryden's cross sections there appears to have been a door or void leading to this upper gallery with its sill at scarcement level and more or less above the door to the cell at 11 o’clock. Thus the stair probably lead to a short landing from which the doorway lead out on to the raised wooden floor resting on the scarcement, a common broch arrangement. There is no doubt that Burray East was once a high, hollow-walled tower broch.
The finds listed below indicate that there was a late occupation on this site, probably in the 7th century and later, when the ball-headed bone hipped pins and the composite bone combs were in use. No stratigraphical evidence for these two phases of use was recorded.
Dimensions. External diameter 19.5 m (64 ft.) (Hedges gives this measurement as 20.07 m [8]), internal diameter 11.13 m (36.5 ft.): the wall proportion is therefore about 43%. The wall chamber at 3 o'clock measures 6.4 x 1.5 x 2.4 m (21 x 5 x 8 ft.) high; that at the foot of the stair was 6.1 m (20 ft.) long and from 1.07 m (3.5 ft.) to 1.45 m (4 ft. 9 in.) wide.
In 1985 careful measurement of the broch's internal wall face by the author suggested that it had been laid out along an exact circle with a radius of 5.50 +/- 0.06 m; the intended diameter would thus be 11.00 (36.07 ft.).
Finds. No clear provenances are given for these but Petrie believed that some of them, having been found among the rubble fallen from the broch wall, must have been originally inside cells or chambers in the upper parts of the tower. This phenomenon does not seem to have been observed in more recently excavated brochs in which the stratigraphy has been more carefully observed. A complete list of the finds has been compiled by Hedges et al. [8] and the more important included the following.
Iron objects: a knife blade and a possible chisel.
Bronze objects included 1 decorated disc-headed pin.
Bone and antler: 4 long-handled antler combs, 2 broken composite double-edged, riveted combs, 2 ball-headed, hipped pins, 1 hipped pin, plain pins, 1 whale vertebra cup, 2 ball-shaped heads for iron pins, 1 hollow and 1 solid, femur-head whorls, fragments of handles, a spatula, tubes, antler plates with holes, and many cut and sawn pieces including a part of a supposed wheel.
Stone: whorls, several vessels, and 1 broken polished disc of mica schist, usable as a mirror when dipped in water [10], rotary quernstones, a loom weight and a lamp with wick rest. There is also a stone whorl from 'Burray' from the J W Cursiter collection in the Hunterian Museum which probably comes from this broch (B.1914.736).
Pottery: 1 sherd of Roman Samian ware, 2 native potsherds.
Animal bones included sheep, cattle, deer, pig and horse [8].
Sources: 1. OS card ND 49 NE 1: 2. Farrer 1857: 3. Farrer 1868: 4. Petrie 1857, 56-8; 5. Petrie 1890, 72-6 and 85-6: 6. Petrie 1927, 24: 7. RCAHMS 1946, 2, no. 862, 293-5 and figs. 369-372: 8. Hedges et al. 1987, 96-101 and pls. 3.11 and 3.12 (ms plan of broch and sketches of openings in wall, with dimensions, by Dryden): 9. (Anderson 1874, 717)
E W MacKie 2002
