Field Visit

Date 20 September 2010

Event ID 884686

Category Recording

Type Field Visit

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/884686

NF 8862 7373

This unexcavated island broch was visited on 20 September 2010. A precise survey of the inner wall face, by the angle-and-distance method, confirmed that

the central court is exactly elliptical. Considerable stone clearance has taken place since the author’s previous visit some years ago, though the interior remains full of rubble. The entrance passage has been partly cleared and the inner

lintel of the stair door is now visible at 12 o’clock (opposite the entrance). Several steps of the intra-mural stair have been exposed to its right, though not to floor level. There is clearly a ground level gallery behind the stair; the steps do not seem

to be preserved above the level of the stair door lintel. The highest point of the inner wall face is at 3 o’clock and behind this is a stretch of lintelled ground level gallery. There is no sign of a scarcement on the inner wall face, which is now exposed from a little way below the roof of the stair door (c1.5m above the floor) to c0.9m above the roof of the ground gallery (c3m above the floor). It is therefore clear that, contrary to the author’s previous assumption (MacKie 2007), any scarcement at Dun Torcuill must have been at the top of Level 2, at the height of the lintels covering the first floor gallery, and must now have vanished. This is a

rare arrangement, which may be clearly seen at Midhowe in Orkney and probably at Yarrows in Caithness.

Archive: RCAHMS (intended)

E W MacKie 2010