Publication Account
Date 2007
Event ID 586779
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/586779
NC50 3 SALLACHADH (‘Sallachy’)
NC/5491 0922
Well preserved solid-based broch in Lairg, Sutherland, standing on a small shallow rock knoll on the west bank of Loch Shin, about 100ft above the water and at the foot of the long slope down to the loch (visited 11/7/63 and 8/7/85).
The interior was cleared out some time before 1909 but no records of this have been found; grass-grown mounds of stony debris lie outside and on either side of the main entrance and are evidently the debris from the interior. However there are still large piles of rubble in the central court so it may not have been cleared down to floor level. Thus the amount of wall concealed by the rubble is uncertain.
Much of the outer face is still concealed by debris, although a good view of the stump of the tower is to be had from the top of the nearby slope. Although the interior wall is exposed to a height of between 2.4 and 2.7m (8 and 9ft) no scarcement ledge is now visible; the upper part of both faces has been rebuilt – to a height of about 1.2m (4ft) in places –in an inferior style of masonry. This is confirmed by the appearance of the ruin from a distance; the wallhead is quite level.
The entrance passage is on the south-east and has been largely cleared; it is about 4.5m (15ft) long but the outer end does not seem to have been fully exposed. There are two cleared guard cells opening off it, their opposed doorways being 2.64m (8ft 8in) from the exterior; each has a sill 51cm (20in) above the passage floor. The doorway to the right guard cell has been crudely re-built, as has the entrance passage, presumably by the excavators; any traces of the door-frame were presumably obscured by this work. The left guard cell is a corbelled chamber which is still largely intact. A bar-hole was noted in 1963 [1]. There are no traces of openings in the interior wallface except for the doorway to the cleared mural stair at 8.30 o'clock, which is 51cm (20in) above the floor inside.
A stair-foot guard cell has also been exposed and as usual opens to the left of the door; it is 2.85m (9ft 4in) long and one lintel (lying radially to the broch) is still in position over the passage. The stair rises to the right and seven steps were preserved at the time of the Commission's visit, some of which can still be seen. There are no traces of intra-mural galleries on the wallhead, presumably because of the re-building activities.
The Commission detected projecting stones – possibly signs of a partly corbelled scarcement – at three places on the inner wall and at a height of nearly 2.7m (9ft) [2]. These can no longer be seen, doubtless because the wall has collapsed to below that level since that time, but in any case the 'scarcement' is unlikely to be original since it must have been well above the re-built level, which is still obvious.
There are signs of an outer wall 14m (46ft) from the broch and south-east of the entrance, which appears to curve in to meet the broch in both directions further round.
Dimensions (author's measurements): external diameter (assuming the walls to be 4.5m or 15ft thick), about 18.9m (63ft) :internal diameter 9.9m (33ft): wall proportion approximately 47.5%.
Sources: 1. NMRS site no. NC 50 NW 1: 2. RCAHMS 1911a, 135-36, no. 392 and fig. 55: 3. Young 1962, 185.
E W MacKie 2007
