Castlehill

ND16NE 11 1936 6876

(ND 1936 6876) Broch (NR) (remains of)

Viking Burial found AD 1786 (NAT)

OS 6" map, (1970)

This grassy mound, which contains the ruins of a broch, has been robbed to some extent from the S. The remaining portion is some 54ft in diameter and 7ft high.

A skeleton, accompanied by a pair of 10th century (Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum 1951) Norse tortoise brooches, a jet armlet 3ins in diameter, and a bone pin 8cm long, was found in September 1786 on top of this mound, buried under a flat stone with very little earth above it. One of the brooches is in the National Museum of Copenhagen, while the other relics are in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS, Accession nos: IL 222, FN 2 & FN 3 respectively).

Archaeol Scot 1831; J Anderson 1874; J Anderson 1878; NMAS 1892; RCAHMS 1911; S Grieg 1940; Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum 1951.

This artificial, grass-covered, conical mound, which measures 19.0m E-W by 13.0m transversely and 2.7m high, contains many protruding stone slabs and has been mutilated on the N side by the construction of a wall and track and by ploughing along the S side. It may have been a broch but its present condition makes classification difficult.

Resurveyed at 1:2500.

Visited by OS (N K B), 16 February 1965.

The mound, probably the remains of a broch, is as described by the previous field investigator.

Visited by OS (J B), 2 November 1981.