Archaeology Notes

Event ID 655248

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/655248

ND26SE 2 2903 6255.

(ND 2903 6255) Hill of Works (NAT)

Broch (NR)

OS 6" map (1970)

Hill of Works broch has an internal diameter of 29ft and a wall thickness of about 13 ft and has apparently had no guard chamber. It stands to a maximum height of 4ft in the interior and 2ft 6 ins on the exterior.

In the central court is a well, to which steps descend, and portions of flags protrude through the covering of vegetation. A secondary wall projects from the internal wall of the broch at the end of the entrance passage.

A concentric wall runs around three-quarters of the circumference of the broch, at a distance of 3 to 4ft, terminating on the WSW and SSE at the ends of approaching passges. The remaining segment has been faced with a scarcement.

At a distance of 26ft from the broch on the N and 50ft on the S is an encircling ditch about 45ft wide. It survives to a depth of 10 ft on the N, is less well defined on the S, and has disappeared on the W.

The broch was excavataed by Sir Francis Tress Barry in 1900, producing fragments of coarse hand-made pottery, some of which, together with other finds from the broch, are in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS). Lying on the floor of the mural chamber were the remains of two skeletons.

The area between the broch and the ditch does not appear to have been explored.

Proc Soc Antiq Scot 1904; Proc Soc Antiq Scot 1909; RCAHMS 1911, visited 1910.

The Hill of Works broch, situated in a small copse, is generally as described above. The steps to the well are no longer discernible, and only vague traces of the concentric wall, 1.0m from the broch, can still be seen. No traces of the scarcement around the S periphery of the broch could be found. Outside the ditch in the N, there is a semicircular earthen bank, 0.8m high.

Immediately S of the broch are several heaps of stones, probably spoil from the excavated site.

Resurveyed at 1:2500.

Visited by OS (NKB) 15 September 1965

Hill of Works broch, which is becoming increasingly obscured by vegetation, is as described by the previous authorities except that the scarcement in the S is now evident, with the top of the broch's outer face above it visible as a slight change of slope.

Visited by OS (JB) 6 May 1982

Broch, 'Hill of Works'. Diameter: 70m. Excavated monument 2m high with much facing visible. Entrance lies on the WSW.

R J Mercer, NMRS MS/828/19, 1995