Field Visit

Date September 2012

Event ID 992962

Category Recording

Type Field Visit

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/992962

NG 83400 17244 In 1920 AO Curle discovered what he described as the first clear evidence for an internal postring within a broch (Curle 1921). Site inspection in 2010 raised doubts whether Curle had reached primary levels, as the interior survives at a substantially higher level than the current floor of the entrance passage (Romankiewicz 2011). Using Curle’s 1921 account published in PSAS and photographs of his investigations held at RCAHMS, a non-invasive survey (photographs and levels) was undertaken in September 2012. This established a height difference of about 0.85m between the currently exposed hearth stone in the centre and the level of the inner end of the entrance passage. The marked step up at the inner end of the entrance passage into the presently sloping grassed-over interior was recorded as c0.55m. The recorded profile, here superimposed onto Curle’s section intimates, but cannot prove, that Curle’s postring sits high above the level of the entrance passage and may be set into substantial deposits that had accumulated above the original floor; if so, the postholes identified by Curle were not a primary feature of the broch. An invasive investigation is needed to clarify this issue.

Archive: RCAHMS (intended)

Funder: University of Edinburgh

Tanja Romankiewicz, University of Edinburgh

Ian Ralston,

2012