Archaeology Notes

Event ID 645944

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/645944

HY51NW 10 5019 1635.

(HY 5020 1635) Ancient Building (NAT) (Site of)

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

On a rocky bank overhanging the beach are the very scanty remains of a broch, known as the "Broch of Steiro" It has been almost totally destroyed by the sea and appears to have had an overall diameter of about 60ft.

RCAHMS 1946, visited 1928

The remains of a broch at HY 5019 1635. The name "Broch of Steiro" is no longer known. Only the NE arc survives under a turf-covered mound. The inner face is visible in the shore line for a length of 11.0m and a maximum height of 1.2m, and one or two stones of the outer face visible in the E give a wall thickness of 3.6m. Within the wall, 0.7m inside the inner face, are two fragments of another built face, which seems to be for stabilizing purposes rather than part of a gallery. Within the broch, against the inner face, is a slab on edge set at right angles to the face.

Re-surveyed at 1/2500.

Visited by OS(AA) 3 October 1972

A fragment of the NE arc of the circuit of a broch tower survives in a now severly sea-eroded mound (it suffered heavy damage in the gale of February 1984). The exposed inner face shows a scarcement measuring 0.6m in width, as well as a rubble-filled opening at the same height, which may have given access to a stair or gallery. On the E side, the broch wall, (here 3.6m thick below scarcement level), is cut by a secondary wall that must have been built after the broch tower had been substantially dismantled. On the W side of the mound there are traces of outbuildings and a severely truncated naust.

Name Book 1880; RCAHMS 1946; 1987, visited July 1984