Archaeology Notes

Event ID 640966

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/640966

HP50SE 3 5578 0052.

(HP 5578 0054) Brough (NR).

OS 6" map, Shetland, 2nd ed., (1900).

The remains of the Broch of Hoga Ness and its massive defensive works, described by Low (Rev G Low 1879) in 1774 as "razed, but well fortified by two deep ditches and ramparts towards the land."

The general outline of the broch can only be traced with difficulty. It appears to have had an overall diameter of about 60ft, and a wall thickness of roughly 15ft. No indications of an entrance, or cells or passages within the wall can now be observed.

The surrounding defences, although mutilated, can still be clearly followed, as the ramparts are massive and the ditches deep and in places cut through rock. The outer ditch is present in the NE quadrant only. Within it is the outer rampart which curves inwards in the SE and NNW interrupting the inner ditch. A crossing has been left for a way of approach at this NNW point. The inner rampart can be seen, in the NE sector at least, to have consisted of a wall at least 10ft thick. At other points, especially near the crossing in the NNW, both ramparts seem to have been reinforced by a stone facing built with a batter. Between the end of the inner ditch and the edge of the cliff in the SE, an outer and inner rampart are again to be seen, though they are of very much slighter dimensions than elsewhere, and no ditch has been dug between them. A wall has evidently run from the S face of the broch to the edge of the cliff, but it is reduced now to overgrown foundations.

G Low 1879; RCAHMS 1946, visited 1930.

A broch generally as described by RCAHMS. There are traces of the entrance in the SW.

Visited by OS(AA) 8 May 1969