Archaeology Notes

Event ID 656208

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/656208

ND49NE 2 4847 9871

See also ND49NE 19

(ND 4847 9871) Ayresdale (NR)

OS 6" map (1900)

A grass-covered broch known as "Ayresdale" or the "West Broch of Burray". The remains are scattered and for the most part hidden beneath the turf, but a tentative excavation carried out many years ago by Farrer revealed walls 12'6" thick and an internal diameter of 31'. A chamber was found in the thickness of the wall opening on one side into the enclosed space, and on another into a gallery which was traced nearly half way round the broch. Near the far end, the gallery communicated by a wide doorway with the interior.

RCAHMS 1946, visited 1929

The remains of a broch surviving as a grass-covered mound of debris measuring 22.0m in diameter and 1.4m high. It has been heavily quarried from the NW, and is further mutilated by army installations. In the S arc, a curved stretch of wall 4.0m long and 0.3m high is uncertainly of the inner face or of the gallery wall.

The name "Ayresdale" is no longer known, the broch bein referred to locally simply as "the hillock".

Surveyed at 1:2500.

Visited by OS (IMT) 16 May 1973

The Orcadian newspaper mentions the excavation of the site in the mid 1850s, when a cup and comb were found (see References).