Visiting Ousdale Broch - an Iron Age structure in Northern Scotland dating from around 2000-3000 years old

I went back to the North of Scotland a few weeks ago, to take my Dad home, after he had been visiting us for a few days. I was born on the North Coast of Scotland (~5 hours drive from where I live now in Edinburgh). While in the north of Scotland, I had the opportunity to visit Ousdale Broch.

Brochs are iron age structures, and are very common in Northern Scotland, and on the isles (western isles, Orkneys and Shetland). There are some in southern Scotland, but they are a lot rarer there. They are round, built of stone, and can be described as a fortified community dwelling house I guess.

Although I have visited a number of brochs, I had never been to this one before. A project was undertaken in the last 4 to 5 years to make it more accessible to the public, which included laying new paths to the site, and undertaking some stabilisation works to the structure.

I have to say that the project has done a great job. They have managed to put a path in across some pretty rough terrain, with info boards picking up a number of features. The pic above was taken from near the car park, with the broch being down in the V of the land that you can see in the distance. Thats the North Sea that you can see at the back.

The path winds down the hillside, through a number of interesting features, including the old road above into the county of Caithness. You can sort of make out the path of the road, its easier to see further back in the picture due to all of the white flowers that have grown over it. This road is atleast 200+ years old.

Continuing down the path you also pass an old abandoned village called The Borg ! So if you ever wanted to know where those guys in Star Trek came from - you now know !!! Not much remains of the village - the stones above show the outlines of some of the long gone dwellings. I think it was actually a clearance village. That is, the residences were forcefully removed from the land and shipped to North America, to make way for sheep/cattle rearing which earned more money. This was a practice that occurred a lot in Northern Scotland around the early 1800s.

Finally, following the path down, you get to the broch. I find them very interesting, and their design is very similar wherever you go to see them, which is quite intriguing - because how did that happen all those years ago. It cant have been by chance. Many of these were built 2000+ years ago, before the Romans invaded Caledonia as they called Scotland, in the first century. Many of them would have still been inhabited by the Picts (one of the collective names used for the inhabitants of Scotland from that era) when the Romans invaded. It could easily be older in the range 2400 to 3000 years old.

In diameter, this broch felt a little smaller than others I have visited, with the space internally being about 5m across. It would have stood around 6m tall, and had say 2-3 levels (including the ground level), but clearly only the ground level remains.

Its walls are very thick at around 3.5 to 4m - and had an internal passageway with staircases to get to higher levels. There would have been other buildings outside along with farmland and the like, with the idea being that they could retreat inside and stay there defensively if they got attacked.

These structures are actually morter-less. That is, a dry-stone method is used to build them. The stones are not bound together in anyway, but carefully selected and placed together to form the structure. This is pretty impressive when you consider that they could be 6m high - the upper stages would have taken some planning and building without cement/mortar, showing the skills that the constructors had.

As per the info board above, a gruesome find was made when the broch was excavated in 1891. It is also thought that there may have been a battle fought here with Vikings at one point as well ! Northern Scotland lies directly across from Scandinavia and was frequently raided by Vikings, and actually came under Viking rule for a long time.

I have to say that I find brochs very interesting, and more and more of them are being made accessible all the time. Our pre-roman iron age civilization is quite incredible, and I've been enjoying finding out more about it in recent years.

I was certainly impressed with the setup at the site, although, it was hard work climbing the path back to the car park after making my way down to the broch. But it was worth it ! I was glad to finally get to see this site, as its been a place I've wanted to visit for about 5 years now ! Well worth the stop !

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