Archaeology Notes

Event ID 673767

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/673767

ND34SW 33 32312 43478

(ND 3231 4347) Broch (NR)

OS 1:10,000 map, (1976)

The remains of a broch, excavated by Anderson and Shearer about 1871 and partly restored. The outer face of the wall has not been laid bare but the inner face has been rebuilt to an even height of about 5ft and the interior is in use as a garden. The main entrance has been from the east, through a passage 14ft long, with no guard chamber and no signs of door checks.

A long cist partly of flags and partly built containing a skeleton was found in the interior, and some small finds from the broch are in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS).

H Dryden 1871; Proc Soc Antiq Scot 1873; RCAHMS 1911.

This broch is generally as described by the RCAHMS: the interior is in use as a sheepfold. Modern walling has sealed entrances to galleries on the N and S.

Resurveyed at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (R L), 19 April 1967.

The remains of this broch are situated in low-lying ground 30m E of an 18th century farmsteading (ND34SW 77). The broch, which was excavated in the 19th century, measures 8.5m in diameter within a wall that stands 1.5m in height, though it has evidently been partly reconstructed, and the entrances to intra-mural chambers on the N, W and S have been blocked. The outer face of the wall is masked by grass-grown rubble, but there is an entrance passage on the E measuring 0.95m in width and 2.7m in length. There are no door checks or bar-slots in this passage, which prompted Mercer to suggest (1985, 262-3, no. 230) that it was of relatively modern date and that the original entrance lay on the S. Dryden's plan of the site suggests that there was, indeed, an entrance on the S, with a gallery leading off its E side and a stair off its W. Although each of the chambers has been excavated, they have remained open and details of their construction are now hidden by collapsed rubble and vegetation. On the date of visit the interior was choked with nettles and no internal features were noted.

The 'chamber' depicted on Dryden's plan is situated outside the S side of the broch and is apparently built into the rubble of its collapse. It comprises three stones, two of them squat upright slabs set 1.3m apart, and the third an earth-fast stone. Its date and purpose are unknown.

(YARROWS04 368)

Visited by RCAHMS (JRS), 30 June 2004.