Clachtoll Broch - 2000 Year Old Dry Stone in Assynt, Scotland.

After looking at hundreds of properties on Air B n B I knew I’d found the right place when I saw that there was a broch and geological evidence of an ancient meteor impact site less than a mile from the house. I’d been to Assynt before on a road trip around Scotland and as a Geology keeno I’d fallen in love, so, it was great to be going back. The house was in Stoer, a crofting township about an hour north of Ullapool.

On our first day there I walked the 10 minutes from the house to Clachtoll Broch (An easy walk but sturdy footwear will make it much more enjoyable). The walk took me through Stoer, over some fields and along the coastline from Stoer Bay towards Clachtoll.

Before getting into this, I suppose the first thing to do is to explain what a Broch is.

Brochs (often called Duns on the West coast) were circular, drystone, hollow-walled, iron age dwelling structures found only in Scotland. Most broch structures have fallen making it hard to know what height they would have been but Mousa in Shetland stands at 14m and Dun Telve in Glen Elg stands at 10.2m. Mousa is an incredibly well preserved example of a broch and is mentioned several times in Norse Sagas. I’ve been fascinated by them since I was very young and that might have something to do with the fact that I grew up in the far north of Scotland where there is a much higher concentration of brochs than anywhere else.

Clachtoll Broch is estimated to be around 2000 years old and was first excavated in 2017. The excavation was a community effort that yielded incredible results.

Arriving at the Broch, my first thoughts were that the photos online didn’t do it justice! I’ve visited several brochs and haven’t seen one with a deliberate path and entrance-way like at Clachtoll (Photo below, left).

Walking towards the Broch your eye is drawn toward the immense, triangular lintel stone. Hard to believe that something so heavy is still sitting in place. Other lintels in the broch have been reinforced underneath with metal bars but not this main lintel. (Photo below, right).

Clachtoll broch is heavily ruined and stands at only 2 metres tall although it is estimated to have been around 10 metres tall. Surrounding the broch is hundreds of tonnes of fallen sandstone. Evidence suggests that the structure fell during a fire. The fire would have quickly torn through the wooden elements and thatched roof of the broch, forcing residents to leave many of their belongings behind. This plus the thick layer of ash that preserved the broch interior is why the excavation produced so many amazing finds.

Walking through the passageway between the ‘front door’ and the interior there are two recesses in the huge walls on either side. It is theorised that these were used for storage of some kind although they can be referred to as ‘guard cells’. The Broch is built directly onto bedrock and the floor is beautiful, weathered sandstone but very uneven (photo above, middle)

I can’t help but experience these structures with the same unfettered wonder that I did as a child. Touching the stones, imagining those who made their home there 2000 years ago, in awe that I am walking in their footsteps. Of course I do that thing we all probably do, close my eyes, place my hands on a stone and hope to channel all the history and stories it has to tell. Sadly, stones don’t seem to give up their secrets too easily.

Now, as a working drystone waller, I also experience these structures from a completely new perspective, the perspective of drystone.

Every waller has a preference in style. I love a visually intriguing wall. The fewer straight lines and conformity the better in my opinion. So, the broch at Clachtoll is build in a style that is very beautiful to me. However, I am a big fan of ‘snecks’ and many are not. The walls at Clachtoll have ‘snecks’ and ‘jumpers’ galore (photo below).

Drystone building style has a lot to do with the stone you have, the tools you have and the time you have. The stones in Clachtoll broch are huge, many easily a metre long, and so they were placed as quickly as they could be and built around. That’s where snecks come in to bridge gaps between irregular shapes and in height. There are many instances within this wall that ‘break the rules’ of drystone but since it’s still standing after 2000 years, I think we can cut them some slack.

We also noticed that a lot of the stones were seriously split and yet the walls still stand, another sign that this drystone was carefully built.

Previously I mentioned that the broch is built directly onto the bedrock. Below (left) you can see an example of how the broch’s internal wall has been built around a section of sandstone cliff top. Below (right) you can also see the most complete section of internal wall and how the floor of the broch is entirely composed of bedrock too.

I read on the broch website (which is excellent!) that the inhabitants would have levelled the floor with pebbles and then placed grass mats on top to create a liveable interior space. During excavation a thick layer of grass mats was discovered and it would appear that whenever the grass mats became wet or dirty, new floor coverings were placed directly on top of the old ones.

Nearly all of the artefacts discovered during excavation were removed from the broch (they are beautifully detailed on the website). However, one incredible artefact remains, The ‘knocking stone’ (above, middle). A knocking stone is where grains would have been ground and when this stone was unearthed it still had a thick layer of partially ground grains still in it, lending more credence to the theory that the residents had to leave quickly.

In the broch you will also find the remains of a stone-built water storage container, a large, stone-lined recess in the floor and the partial remains of a staircase. Climbing the staircase, the view reaches out into the Atlantic Ocean, which has a constant presence through its rhythmic interactions with the rocks that the broch stands on.

We went back to the broch several times during our stay and I could happily visit many more. I highly recommend you take the time to go if you are in the area, after all, this is a 2000 year old, drystone structure, standing proud on the rugged, wind-battered shoreline in Assynt. We’re all incredibly lucky to be able to visit the brochs that still stand in Scotland but as drystone wallers I feel it is a particular honour to be able to take such a close look 2000 years back into our craft.