I continued my historic visits yesterday and went to see another new iron age site that I hadnt been to before. Its called Tappoch Broch, which is just by the town of Torwood in central Scotland.
I have to say I'm still buzzing after visiting the broch - it was fantastic, and I know my pictures are not going to do it justice.
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. This is one of the Southern Scottish ones, hence feels quite special, and is only the second one I've seen in this area.
Without realising it, I probably took the hardest path to get there. It really was quite rough and through loads of undergrowth, without any sign posts. Luckily google maps kept me on course.
As I started getting near it I spotted this rocky outcrop, where you can see that someone had actually built some kind of shelter. It was looking quite atmospherically stone-age at that point, so I had to go and check it out.
But it was clearly just a place for the local youths to go and smoke and drink based on the debris there. Cool wee overhang. Unbeknown to me at this point, the broch I was looking for was pretty much above this on-top of the rocky outcrop.
I went back to the path, which continued round and then up the rocky outcrop. I then had to head through some very thick ferns which were over my head height (I'm over 6 foot tall - so these were big). And then all of a sudden there it was. Its hard to see in the pic above but thats the remnants of the round outer walls.
The site was entirely overgrown. It was situated right at the top of the rocky outcrop and is surrounded by a scots pine forest. I have to say the setting was quite magical because you absolutely cant see it until you are right at it, and then it really feels like something that has been completely lost to the forest !
This broch was only discovered at the end of the 19th century, and is considered about the second best example of a lowland broch. You could still see the main features of the outerwalls and main entrance. There was one external room as well.
The internal staircase that would have taken you to the next level was still visible, but as with many of the brochs remaining, its walls were only the height of the ground level (about 2m high). It originally would have been about 20m or so high and would have had quite a beautiful bee-hive/bell shape.
In comparison to Northern brochs it had the same main shape and features, although its walls were really thick at about 5m thick ! It was also built from really large stone blocks, generally larger than those used in northern brochs, but would probably be representative of the materials they had locally. Remember that some poor person had to drag these up to the top of this hill over 2000 years ago with probably very crude tools at best ! Poor guys !
It was quite difficult to see much of the internal features due to the ferns inside which were pretty impregnable in places.
The location of this broch is very interesting, because this area was invaded by Roman legions in the 70s/80s AD, and it is likely that this broch would have been attacked unless they managed to make peace with them (which some of the Scottish tribes did). The Roman Antonine Wall was then constructed across Central Scotland around 140AD, which was accompanied with a much larger Roman presence in the area. This broch stands around 4 miles north of the Antonine Wall line and as such it probably would have made life in this location a lot more difficult at that point.
The pic above was taken from the top of the broch walls, showing the surrounding landscape downhill with one of the exit paths. After visiting the broch I did venture further to see a few other features in the area. While doing that I bumped into some people and we were chatting about the brochs and I mentioned that I'd been to quite a few others ones, which they were asking me about and it made me think of making a post showing all of the ones I have been too. So I'll have to get working on that at some point !
Even though it was a detour, I decided to go back past the broch again on the way back tp the car, because I enjoyed seeing it so much. I have to say that it was the location deep in the forest on the top of the rocky outcrop that made it so magical. What a place - I will absolutely be going back to see it again. I cant recommend this site enough (as long as you know how to find it !!!). Just brilliant !
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