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Fetlar, Ruir Taing, Lamb Hoga

Broch (Iron Age)(Possible), Promontory Fort (Prehistoric)

Site Name Fetlar, Ruir Taing, Lamb Hoga

Classification Broch (Iron Age)(Possible), Promontory Fort (Prehistoric)

Alternative Name(s) Broch Of Burgastoon

Canmore ID 1406

Site Number HU68NW 2

NGR HU 61573 87329

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/1406

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
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Digital Images

Administrative Areas

  • Council Shetland Islands
  • Parish Fetlar
  • Former Region Shetland Islands Area
  • Former District Shetland
  • Former County Shetland

Archaeology Notes

HU68NW 2 6157 8731.

(HU 6156 8734) Site of Brough (OE)

OS 6" map, Shetland, 2nd ed.,(1900).

In 1840 while building a stone wall across the entrance to this head-land, the stones of the brough were removed for building purposes and some ashes were found some 3 or 4 feet under the surface of the ground.

Burgalstou to the north, is'a small green spot.. said to be Pictish remains'.

Name Book 1878.

No evidence of a broch was found

RCAHMS 1946, visited 1930.

Only disturbed ground, eroded by the sea, indicates the site of the broch, and no broch features survive.

On the NW landward side, three low turf-covered banks with medial ditches, 1.3m deep defend the head- land. These have been reduced by erosion and are now a maximum of 20.0m long. No entrance can be seen. Burgalston is a fairly modern cultivated area, with no signs of antiquity.

Surveyed at 6" scale.

Visited by OS (NKB) 15 May 1969.

Activities

Field Visit (8 September 1930)

Ruir Taing, Lamb Hoga. There is no evidence of the ‘Brough’ marked on the O.S.map.

RCAHMS 1946, visited 8 September 1930.

OS 6" map, Shetland, 2nd ed., (1900).

Publication Account (2002)

HU68 1 RUIR TAING HU/616873

Possible 'brough' on Fetlar I., marked on the old OS map, but there are no signs of it now apart from some disturbed ground eroded by the sea; possible traces of ramparts defending the headland are nearby [1].

Sources: 1. OS card HU 68 NW 2: 2. RCAHMS 1946, vol. 3, no. 1243, 63.

E W MacKie 2002

Note (4 March 2016 - 5 August 2016)

This fort occupies a precipitous coastal promontory now only connected to the mainland on the NW by a narrow neck some 45m in length and in place little more than 4m in width. At the inner end a grass-grown bank traverses the neck, enclosing an area measuring about 55m in maximum length and splaying to about 40m in breadth at the seaward end on the SE (0.15ha). The main defences, however, lie at the landward end of the neck, where two ramparts and ditches have been drawn across the isthmus from the cliff on the NE to leave a narrow entrance way along the SW margin. This crosses over a natural arch formed at the inner end of a geo that has eroded back into the neck behind the inner of these ramparts, which stand between 1.2m and 1.5m above the bottoms of the adjacent ditches. An area of disturbance and several earthfast stones is visible within the interior, but no clearly defined structure. The OS name Book records that stones were robbed from here to build a dyke (Name Book, Shetland, No.13, p 30, 34).

Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 05 August 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC4193

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