Description

The monument consists of the remains of a broch on a promontory on the E side of Loch of Breibister. The broch is reduced to a low stony mound, surrounded by the remains of a double stone-faced rampart with an intervening ditch. The outworks are particularly well-preserved to the N of the broch, where the ramparts stand up to 1m high and 3m across.

The flat-bottomed ditch is in places cut into the bedrock, and if loch levels in the Iron Age were similar to modern times, would have been either water- filled or very boggy. Traces of a causeway can be seen leading across the ditch. The area to be scheduled is irregular, bounded in part by the shore of the loch and elsewhere by a line 10m outside the outer lip of the ditch, as marked in red on the accompanying map.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland

Statement of Scheduling

The monument is of national importance as an example of a broch with unusual outer defences. Although the broch and its defences are themselves much reduced, the waterlogged nature of the ditch may offer important opportunities, through excavation and analysis, to study rarely-preserved organic material relating to the Iron Age economy and environment.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland

Sources

Bibliography

RCAHMS records the monument as HU24NW 1.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland