Allt Na Meirle
Broch (Iron Age)
Site Name Allt Na Meirle
Classification Broch (Iron Age)
Alternative Name(s) A'mheirle
Canmore ID 5504
Site Number NC60SW 1
NGR NC 6300 0484
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/5504
- Council Highland
- Parish Rogart
- Former Region Highland
- Former District Sutherland
- Former County Sutherland
NC60SW 1 6300 0484.
(NC 6300 0484) Broch (NAT) (remains of)
OS 1:10,000 map, (1971)
The remains of a broch, now an absolute ruin. Only the outer face of the wall is visible intermittently, but a chamber has been partially exposed in the east side and the existence of another, in the north, is indicated. What may be the entrance passage is visible, through a small aperture in front of a roofing slab, on the east. The diameter of the structure is not measurable without excavation. On the west, in the direction of the slope, the ruin is about 12ft high, but it is considerably less on the east.
RCAHMS 1911, visited 1909.
The broch is generally as described. It is a spread, rubble mound about 25m. in diameter. The possible entrance passage is in the SE. The end of a third mural chamber is now exposed.
Visited by OS (E G C) 27 June 1963.
No change to previous field report.
Visited by OS (J B) 1 October 1980.
Publication Account (2007)
NC60 1 A'MHEIRLE (‘Allt na Mheirle’)
NC/3000 0484
This broch in Rogart, Sutherland, stands at the upper end of Strath Fleet and about 100m above the road on once cultivated, sloping ground; there is a sheep pen next to it and field clearance cairns close by (visited 1963 and 1985).
There is a modern cairn on the rubble heap. The outer wallface is visible in places but the inner one is obscured. What seems to be the entrance is visible on the east side through an aperture in front of a lintel. The end of a mural cell is visible on the south-east with traces of a lintelled intra-mural passage on the south side. Another possible cell is on the north. The wall may thus be standing quite high in places, and there is a pile of rubble about 4m high on the downhill side. Indeed the roof of one of the cells can be seen to be corbelling inwards about 2m below the top of this heap which suggests that the interior floor is about 3.5m below the present top of the wall. One of the visible lintels is at a similar height so should be that of a raised void, confirming that the structure is a hollow-walled broch.
Sources: 1. NMRS site no. NC 60 SW 1: 2. RCAHMS 1911a, 165, no. 478.
E W MacKie 2007
