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Publication Account
Date 2007
Event ID 586420
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/586420
ND25 7 COGHILL ('Cogle')
ND/2670 5708
Site of a probable solid-based broch in Watten, Caithness, standing on flat ground. The structure was excavated in 1905 by Dr. Anstruther Davidson and a plan was made of the exposed building by Mr. J Nicholson of Lybster; it survives now as a low mound 60cm high and covered with vegetation.
Description
The entrance passage, 5.19m (17ft) long, is on the west; its width is 75cm (2.5ft) for the first 3.97m (13ft) at which point it is rebated for door-checks, with slabs set in the wall according to the plan. Thereafter the width is 1.21m (4ft), narrowing a little at the inner end. A pivot stone was found just inside from the left check. At 3 o'clock is the doorway to a mural stair, rising to the right, with a stair-foot guard cell on the left. The latter is 5.03m (16.5ft) long by 1.22m (4ft) wide, widening to 2.13m (7ft) at the far end.
Four radial slabs were set in the interior against the broch wallface to the left of the entrance. A curved U-shaped wall, probably also secondary, was in the interior and had a hearth at one end of it, against its inside face. The convexity of the 'U' faced the entrance so one presumably had to go round this obstruction to get to the fireplace. The entrance passage seemed to have been secondarily extended outwards by a “casing wall”. There are no signs of this structure now [1].
Finds: in 1911 these were in the school house at Gersa and included fragments of three "vessels of unornamented pottery", many hammerstones, rubbing stones, thin shale discs and a fine bone pin. Only saddle querns are preserved, although a rotary quern and a stone mortar of uncertain origin were seen at the farm in 1982 [1]. In 1934 some further finds were recorded [3]; they included 1 pointed and socketed deer horn implement, a deer horn handle with socket and 2 pointed implements of deer-horn and bone respectively.
Dimensions: external diameter (from plan) c. 19.22m (63ft), internal 8.85m (29ft): the wall proportion is therefore c. 54%.
Sources: 1. NMRS site no. ND 25 NE 8: 2. RCAHMS 1911b, 129-30, no. 469 and fig. 31: 3. Proc Soc Antiq Scot 69 (1934-35), 14-15 (donations).
E W MacKie 2007
