Carn Liath - a 2000 year old broch (fort) in the Highlands of Scotland

One of my fav features to explore around Scotland are brochs. They are iron age forts (for a better word) dating from around 2000+ years ago. The one I have probably visited the most is called Carn Liath, and is located just north of Golspie on the North East coast.

They are built entirely from stone, due to the age, without mortar of any kind !

There are quite a few of them around, mostly in North East Scotland where I come from. There are also a few in the Orkneys, Shetland and the Hebridean isles. Whats quite impressive is that they are all very similar in design.

As can be seen above they were round in shape and quite high. The wall is very thick, and was large enough to contain staircases and corridors inside it, to get to higher levels.

All of them are ruined now, and not a single one remains to its full glory - although there are a few well preserved ones - 2 on the mainland, one in the Hebrides and one in Shetland (that I can think of). In the pic above you can see the staircase and how the corridor ran inside the large thick outer wall.

These are defensive structures, and nearly always have the remains of further buildings/constructions outside of them. It is thought that the inhabitants maybe tended crops, and animals outside and had their own shelters outside, and then if attacked they would retreat inside the broch for protection.

Believe it or not, this is one of the better preserved ones. There are many that are just a mound or at best a pile of stones these days.

I've visited maybe 20+ different ones, and really enjoy seeing them. Its amazing to think how they might have been constructed all of those years ago. I also wonder about the inhabitants and what life might have been like for them - probably rather violent in general, hence the desire to build these large stone walls.

They were big - I guess this one could have easily housed 50+ people.

Above you can see the layers in the wall and how thick they are. Britain did not have the construction skills or industry set up like other civilizations back in those days, so these would have been considerable undertakings. I'm just amazed at how the design seems to be nearly identical wherever you see them. I wonder how they passed the design information around.

There is a project, called the Caithness Broch Project that has the goal of building one to full scale. I would absolutely love to see that happening - it would be quite awesome !

That project team also do a lot of good work in preserving some of the existing brochs and also making them more accessible. As a result many more are now accessible, especially in my home county of Cathines, which is quite incredible - and they've also helped put some on the map that were relatively unknown - they do great work !

They have listed two new ones close to where I grew up, and I'm looking forward to seeing both on one of my next trips up north to see my dad !
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the pics - and I strongly urge you to visit a broch if you are ever in the north of Scotland - and just as an added incentive, the majority of them are free to enter !