Brochs
This is one of the most distinctive types of monument to be found in the Outer Hebrides, and one that has fascinated antiquarians and archaeologists for generations. These massive drystone towers were built sometime between 500 BC and 0 BC, and acted on a variety of levels, serving as an imposing home for the leading family of the area, a place of possible refuge for the immediate community, a farmhouse, a central focus for the locality in the way a medieval castle did in later times, and as a demonstration of the strength and power of the individual who dwelt there.
Their structure is particularly distinctive, and is quite uniform throughout the area. They were circular in plan, generally between 12 and 19 metres in diameter, with massively thick lower walls usually incorporating several chambers. Above ground floor level they are built of two separate concentric walls, with a staircase and passageways between, tied together at intervals with stone slabs. The interior space of the broch comprised the main rooms, with storage on the ground floor, and the main living area above. They were likely to have been covered with a conical roof, although perhaps resting on the interior wall head to allow a parapet walkway.
The best preserved broch in the Outer Hebrides is at Dùn Carloway on the west side of Lewis, standing in parts to 6.7 metres high, although its original height may have been as much as 9 metres. Other good examples are at Dùn Cuier, Barra, Dùn Mhulan in South Uist, Dun an Sticar in North Uist, and Dun Boranais and Dun Borgh in Lewis, although at some sites they only survive as a robbed-out footprint, as at Rubha’ an Teampuill, Harris.
Much of our knowledge comes from two brochs in the Outer Hebrides which have been extensively although not completely excavated: Dùn Mhulan in South Uist; and Beirgh Broch in Uig, Lewis. At Beirgh broch, however, all the deeply stratified excavated levels related to later re-occupation.
Broch and causeway, Bruernish, Barra
The most complete broch in Scotland is on Mousa in Shetland, reaching 13 metres. There are about 500 brochs remaining in Scotland, mostly distributed in the Hebrides, the Northern Isles, and the north and west coasts.
Brochs can occupy a wide variety of settings, from hilltops to sheltered islands within lochs, and often their surrounding landscape has changed dramatically, such as the case of Dùn Mhulan which started out on an island in a protected freshwater loch, and now lies on a storm-battered Atlantic shore. In the early centuries AD, the classic way of life in many of the brochs seems to have come to an end, and smaller, humbler houses were built inside the shells of the grand, old brochs. Re-occupation generally continued until the eve of the Viking incursions at the end of the 8th century, after which the sites were commonly abandoned. It was not uncommon in the later middle ages, however, for the broch shells to once more become the residence of local chieftains.
Brochs are only one type in an impressive range of related buildings, such as duns, roundhouses and wheelhouses, which were erected in the Outer Hebrides in the Iron Age.
Further Reading:
- Ian Armit and Noel Fojut Dun Charlabhaigh and the Hebridean Iron Age Urras nan Tursachan, 1998
- Mike Parker Pearson and Niall Sharples Between Land and Sea: excavations at Dun Vulan, South Uist Sheffield Academic Press, 1999
