Thrumster Little
Broch (Iron Age)(Possible)
Site Name Thrumster Little
Classification Broch (Iron Age)(Possible)
Canmore ID 8972
Site Number ND34NW 2
NGR ND 33843 45834
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/8972
- Council Highland
- Parish Wick
- Former Region Highland
- Former District Caithness
- Former County Caithness
ND34NW 2 3384 4583.
(ND 3384 4583) Broch (NR) (remains of)
OS 1:10,000 map, (1975)
Broch, Thrumster Little: The ruin is mostly beneath a grassy mound, which is about 9ft above the level of the field, but the whole of the outer circumference of the broch is visible and shows an overall diameter of 56 1/2ft. The interior is only partly cleared and the assumed internal diameter is about 30 1/2ft.
RCAHMS 1911.
The whole of the outer circumference of the broch, although fragmentary in places, is visible. It has an over all diameter of 17m, and the outer wall face has a maximum height of 1.5m. The entrance, 1.0m wide, is on the E side and has an exposed length of 2.5m. On the left side of the entrance, 1.2m in, is a check-stone. There are fragmentary traces of what is probably the inner wall face to the left of the entrance giving the wall a width of some 3.8m. The interior is a mutilated mass of turf-covered stones in which no broch features were seen. The remains have an over all height of 2.7m above the surrounding ground level.
Revised at 1:2500.
Visited by OS (W D J) 22 April 1963.
No change to the previous field report.
Visited by OS (J B) 19 August 1982.
This broch is situated 35m SSE of Thrumster Little farmsteading, where it stands on the E side of a field of improved pasture. It measures 17m in diameter within a wall 3.3m in thickness and up to 1.5m in height, but the interior is filled with debris that rises another 1.25m above the surviving masonry. There is an entrance on the E, which measures 0.9m in width at the external wall-face, and it has been used to gain access to the interior to dig out an area measuring about 5m square. The outer edge of a shallow ditch, which measures up to 5.5m in breadth and 0.3m in depth, is visible immediately NE and SW of the broch.
The broch is depicted and annotated both 'Cairn' and 'Pict's House (Remains of)' on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Caithness 1877, sheet xxix). This map shows the access track to the steading skirting the W side of the broch, and this probably accounts for the degradation of the ditch on this side. The broch is annotated 'Brough' on the 2nd edition of the map (Caithness 1907, sheet xxix), by which time the access track had been realigned around the E side of the monument.
(YARROWS04 183)
Visited by RCAHMS (ATW), 29 July 2004.
Publication Account (2007)
ND34 11 THRUMSTER LITTLE ND/3384 4583
Probable solid-based broch in Wick, Caithness, standing in a flat field; it is mostly a grassy mound now but has been partly cleared so that all the outer face, though fragmentary in places, is visible all the way round [1]. The foundation stones are very large.
The entrance (which has lost all its lintels) is on the east-north-east side and in 1910 was 3.9m (13ft) long in and 1.0m (3ft 3in) wide at the outer end [2]; it is no longer completely exposed [1]. A pair of door-checks formed of projecting stone slabs is situated 1.83m (5ft 6in) from the exterior, and the passage is 1.17m (3ft 10in) wide behind these; only one check is now visible, and is reported as at 1.2m in [1]. It is not possible tell whether a guard chamber existed without further excavation. Only part of the inner face is exposed, for some 6m (19.7ft) to the left of the inner end of the entrance. About 2.4m (8ft) clockwise along this wall there was visible in 1910 an opening which appeared to be the void over the buried doorway to an intra-mural chamber, visible behind [2]; these features can no longer be seen [1], but the void is enough to allow the structure to be classified with reasonable confidence as a broch.
Dimensions: the overall diameter is now about 17m and the wall is some 3.8m thick; this would suggest an internal diameter of about 9.4 m.
Sources: 1. NMRS site no. ND 34 NW 2 (with photo.): 2. RCAHMS 1911b, 146, no. 503: 3. Proc Soc Antiq Scot 7 (1868-70), 416.
E W MacKie 2007
