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Mail

Broch (Iron Age)(Possible), Chess Piece (Stone)(Period Unknown)(Possible), Rotary Quern (Period Unknown)

Site Name Mail

Classification Broch (Iron Age)(Possible), Chess Piece (Stone)(Period Unknown)(Possible), Rotary Quern (Period Unknown)

Alternative Name(s) Cunningsburgh

Canmore ID 941

Site Number HU42NW 8

NGR HU 43254 27792

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/941

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

Administrative Areas

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

Activities

Field Visit (14 July 1930 - 12 July 1934)

Broch, Mail. Close to the church at Mail in the Cunningsburgh area is a grass topped mass of rock, which at most states of the tide has the appearance of being an island about 20 yds. from the shore. At low water, however, it can be reached dry-shod over a reef. It is marked on the O.S. map as the site of a broch, and it is just large enough to have accommodated a structure of the kind. Some years ago the occupier of the croft immediately opposite removed a number of stones from what he described, in 1934, as having been a circular foundation, subsequently replacing the turf by which they had been covered. His spoils included the upper half of a rotary quern and also a small conical stone object, ‘probably a chess-man’*, the latter now in the National Museum.

*See P.S.A.S., lviii (1923-4), p. 17, for description and illustration.

RCAHMS 1946, visited 14 July 1930 and 12 July 1934

(Undated) OS map annotation.

Field Visit (8 May 1968)

HU42NW 8 4325 2779

(HU 4323 2779) Brough (OE)

(Undated) OS map annotation.

HU 4325 2781. There are no visible traces of a broch on this turf-covered rocky islet except for some vague traces of possible walling on the NE and NW sides.

Visited by OS (WDJ), 8 May 1968.

Publication Account (2002)

HU42 4 MAIL ('Broch of Mail')

HU/432280

Possible broch in Dunrossness on a tidal islet of rock. There are no traces of a broch now but circular foundations have been reported [2].

Sources: 1. OS card HU 42 NW 8: 2. RCAHMS 1946, vol. 3, no. 1187, 45.

E W MacKie 2002

References

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