Publication Account
Date 2007
Event ID 586521
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/586521
ND35 8 WESTER BROCH ('Castle Linglas')
ND/3385 5831
This probable solid-based broch in Wick, Caithness, stands among sandhills near the shore. It was excavated by Sir F Tress Barry in 1894 and stands on low ground "just within the fringe of sandhills which border the shore" [3]. There is very little to be seen now except the outline of a curving wall [7]. The information about the site therefore comes entirely from the excavator, by way of Joseph Anderson and a plan and a photograph [2, 4].
Description
The main entrance is on the west-north-west and was 3.97m (13ft) long, 1.07m (3.5ft) wide at the exterior and 79cm (2ft 7in) at the inner end. The door-frame is 2.75m (9ft) in but the design of the checks is not described (see below). At 9 o'clock is the doorway to the mural stair which is raised 92cm (3ft) above the interior floor; it is 76cm (2ft 6in) wide. There was a stair-foot guard cell 2.90m (9ft 6in) long and 92cm (3ft) wide but this had become invisible again in 1910 [3]. The photograph shows the partially cleared interior and the inner end of the entrance passage with the two slab-checks of the door-frame close to the inner end.
The broch is surrounded by traces of outbuildings but – as with many another 'excavated' Caithness broch – the plan of their walls is incoherent and they were evidently not explored systematically. Around these on the north-west and south-west runs a wall which may have surrounded the whole complex. It is impossible to tell from the plan and description whether it was an outer defence or simply a boundary wall for the presumably secondary settlement around the tower.
Finds:
Bone and antler: 1 needle (no. 23) and (also described as a needle) a fish gorge (no. 24), 2 pins or awls, 1 pin with a globular head, 2 more pins (broken), 1 plain long-handled comb (no. 21), 3 antler rings, 1 femur-head whorl or button (no. 25) and 1 possible bridle cheek-piece – a “curved bone” 10cm (4in) long with an oval hole (no. 22).
Stone tools included 4 roughly chipped discs or pot-lids, 2 whetstones, 1 decorat-ed whorl ornamented with 15 drilled pits and half a plain whorl (no. 28).
Some pottery is also included with the finds in the National Museums (nos. 26 and 27) and it includes 2 rim sherds which in form resemble the late Bronze Age ‘Dunagoil vases’ from Crosskirk – particularly no. 27 with the indentations under the slightly out-turned rim – but which are made of a hard-fired, smooth, grey ware.
Joseph Anderson also mentions the following objects which do not seem to have reached the National Museum [2]: 1 upper stone of a rotary quern, several saddle querns, and 3 quartzite pebbles with painted spots [2, fig. 22]. One of the querns is the standard Atlantic, disc-shaped type with a loose handle-hole in the upper surface; the one on the left of the photograph appears to be a lower stone of the same type.
Dimensions: external diameter c. 16.47m (54ft), internal 8.24m (27ft); the wall proportion is about 50%.
Sources: 1. NMRS site no. ND 35 NW 4: 2. Anderson 1901, 119-22: 3. Proc Soc Antiq Scot 43 (1908-9), 119 (finds): 4. RCAHMS 1911b, 153-4, no. 513, and fig. 58: 5. Young 1962, 184: 6. Caulfield 1978, 132, no. 19: 7. Swanson (ms) 1985, 604-05: 8. Batey 2002, 187: 9. J Wordsworth in Discovery and Excavation Scotland 1997, 52.
E W MacKie 2007
