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Charles Harper

Dun Beag is one of the best preserved brochs and a good example of a broch tower. 

Brochs only appear in Scotland. They are dry stone structures formed of two concentric walls with a narrow entrance passage. Stone stairs ran between the walls to provide access, perhaps to upper floors, and the top.

Scotland’s brochs were built in the Iron Age, first emerging about 2,300 years ago. Their use continued until the middle of the first millennium CE.

#Broch #scotland #struan #isleofskye #sunshine

Perched on a rocky hilltop, it displays a number of defensive features. The entrance is a narrow passage, and door-checks show it was once closed by a timber door. Once inside, there are very few breaks in the strong, tall dry stone walls. One opening, at ground level, leads to a small chamber – possibly a guardroom. Another leads to a narrow stone stair, of which 20 steps still survive, with another possible guard cell at the entrance.  It is likely to have been about 10 metres tall although there is only about 3 metres still standing. It would have been an imposing feature in the landscape. The view from up there takes in Loch Bracadale and the Outer Hebrides in the distance. Brodie the Fox Red Labrador is there to provide some scale.
25 Oct 2024 at 15:44 | Open on mastodon.scot
9 comments
Captain Jack Sparrow
Bodhipaksa

@ChaHarper It's really interesting that brochs are found only in Scotland. An Irishwoman I talked to about crannogs was familiar with them from her homeland, so I had assumed that they would have had brochs as well.

25 Oct 2024 at 15:54 | Open on mastodon.scot
Sarah E Bourne

@ChaHarper We're so glad we got to visit Dun Beach when we visited Skye this past May. It's a very special place.

25 Oct 2024 at 17:00 | Open on mastodon.social
Charles Harper

@sbourne That's great. I love the fact that something more than 2,000 years old is just there on a hilltop...

25 Oct 2024 at 17:22 | Open on mastodon.scot
Simon Brooke

@ChaHarper There's the substantial remains of a building with many of the features of a broch, including the hollow centre, and the double walls and apparent accommodation within them, but roughly rectangular in plan, at Castlehaven Bay near Borgue, in Galloway. Whether it's a related to brochs or not I'm not qualified to say.

25 Oct 2024 at 18:58 | Open on mastodon.scot
Charles Harper

@simon_brooke Thanks for telling me it existed...I found the entry on Canmore:
canmore.org.uk/site/63623/cast That doesn't make me qualified either but I trust Canmore to be filled with facts rather than opinions...

25 Oct 2024 at 19:12 | Open on mastodon.scot
Peter Brown

@ChaHarper they are tantalisingly similar to the nuraghi of Sardinia.
And I can’t remember where I read it but I seem to recall that our sheep are descended from Sardinian sheep.

25 Oct 2024 at 19:22 | Open on mastodon.scot
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