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Brochs
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Formidable
Iron Age strongholds
- they were built
in numbers across
northern Scotland
for about 300 years, then suddenly fell out of use. The Brochs were
symbols of both defence and prestige. They suggest a time when localised
defences against raiders were necessary and it became necessary
for people to look to powerfull individuals to protect them. It
was also a time when communal burials became less common and rich
farmers or chieftains were buried individually with precious objects
to show their status. Although the Brochs fell out of use relatively
quickly, the communities which prospered around them did not. In
Orkney alone there are over 120 brochs, with 500 to be found across
Scotland.
The Broch of Gurness - Orkney - Factsheet
- The
Broch of Gurness is a stalwart Iron Age fortress
situated on Aikerness Peninsula on the main
island of Orkney. It was designed to protect
a prosperous farming community from raiding
warriors, who might have stolen their cattle,
land or even enslaved the villagers of Gurness.
Raiding was probably infrequent, and for the
most part the Broch was built to be an impressive
symbol of prestige for the chieftain who lived
there - just like the later medieval towerhouses
found all over Scotland.
- The
Gurness site was 45m across and encircled
by a protective ditch with high stone walls
- breached only in one place by an entrance
causeway. In the centre of the site stood
the Broch: a high stone tower of eight to
ten metres tall, and 20m in diameter.
- This
would have been the house of the local chieftain,
surrounded by his followers. They were farmers,
living off the harvests of land and sea, spinning
and weaving, as well as trading across Scotland
and perhaps further afield.
- Iron
Age Orkney wasn’t an isolated place.
In 325 BC the Greek writer Pytheas mentioned
the ‘Orcas’, showing that it was
known as far away as the eastern Mediterranean.
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After about 100 AD the Brochs seem to have
fallen out of fashion. Perhaps they were no
longer useful as the tribes of Scotland faced
a new threat from the Roman Empire. At Gurness
the western wall of the broch collapsed, which
was repaired eventually, but a declining village
population and a further collapse led to it
being abandoned.
- By
the 4th and 5th Centuries patterns of farming
had changed in Orkney. Its Iron Age tribes
had become part of the Pictish nation. They
lived in farmsteads across the Orcadian landscape
- one shamrock-shaped farm being built right
next to the Broch of Gurness.
- By
800 AD in the Orkneys, Pictish farmers faced
a new threat. The Vikings started to invade
and settle. One of them, a Viking woman, was
buried in pagan style near the Broch, complete
with elaborate brooches to accompany her in
the afterlife.
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