Digging deep into history at Clachtoll Broch
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Standing in a gaping hole in the broch’s western wall, battered into submission by two millennia of pounding seas, Fin Valentine explains what life might have been like in this exact spot 2000 years ago.
We stand on the bedrock on which the floor would have been levelled, with a large hearth in the centre and tools, utensils and gaps leading to storage cells in the outside walls dotted around the internal circumference.
Evidence of weaving combs, weights, scythes and knives were found in the remains during an excavation project a few years ago, and slowly but surely a picture of life in Assynt around the time of Christ’s birth is beginning to take shape.
Clachtoll Broch sits precariously close to the Minch, a short walk north from the beautiful sandy beach, and by the turn of this century investigations revealed that its walls were facing total collapse if nothing was done.
Historic Assynt got involved in a project to save the broch while making it safer for visitors and providing more information about its past. A major turning point came when rubble from the collapsed structure was removed – by hand – and the walls strengthened in 2017 as part of the Coigach and Assynt Living Landscape Project (CALLP).
Fin, a volunteer archaeologist with Historic Assynt who was involved in the excavation, explained: “If you can get down to that [bedrock] you can potentially learn more about what daily life would have been like.
“Unfortunately, to get down to this bedrock, and to take cognisance of everything they discovered, they had to remove 282 tonnes of rubble just to get down onto that last occupation layer.
“Now, this was all done by hand, it was done over a period of four weeks, and doing nothing other than people lifting – and we’re not talking about small stones.”
The ‘rubble’ thrown over the side and used in various elements of the project – including creating a path to the stabilised entrance and building a nearby otter holt for the creatures which had taken up residence in the broch – is made up of large blocks, impossible to lift single-handedly. It must have been a difficult task just to get started.
Fin led us on a walk to the broch from the car park at Clachtoll beach as part of a weekend mini festival of local events called Our Living Landscape, organised by CALLP.
The short walk is easy to follow and can be done at any time, though people visiting the broch are asked not to climb on its walls. Going inside, however, is safe to do and it’s possible to clamber into some of the cells and find part of the old staircase.
One discovery that is still in situ is a knocking stone, used for removing husks from grain before it was stored and ground to make flour.
To reach the broch, you follow the track past the toilets at the back of the car park as it bends right to pass a rocky bay. At a prominent monument – to Rev Norman Macleod – go through a gate to the right and follow the marked route past a croft house through its well-kept gardens.
Beyond the last wall, climb to a small rise above the sea, from where you get your first clear view down to the broch. A sometimes boggy path leads down the grassy foreshore to reach the structure.
On the way, Fin paused by a long wall which appears very different from the usual dry-stane dykes that surround and divide most crofts in this landscape. There is a belief this could be contemporary with the Iron Age broch, though no excavation has taken place to confirm that.
As you get closer to the broch, the impressive structure really begins to reveal its shape, and a walk to the far side takes you to the entrance pathway. Pointing to some of the unusual stonework around the entrance, Fin suggests that it provides evidence of a period of rebuilding, something confirmed by other evidence gathered during the project, which involved professional archaeologists as well as community teams.
It seems the broch was rebuilt on a number of occasions and its final use was as a much lower building than would originally have been seen here. Ultimately, the building was destroyed by a catastrophic fire which forced its final inhabitants – if you exclude the otters – out of their home.
This terrible ending, however, means Clachtoll Broch is in a unique position to have retained and preserved a snapshot in time from the Iron Age. Finds from within the broch – or at least 3D printed copies of them – were on display as part of the festival at Lochinver Village Hall on the day of our walk, and it was fascinating to see some of the day-to-day items of life 2000 years ago.
The project to conserve the broch and share its story continues, with plans for a viewing platform overlooking the broch and interpretation panels to improve visitor access in the pipeline.
Our walk returned by roughly the same route as we chatted about the insights we had learned, meanwhile admiring the glorious view across the sea to the sun-soaked mountains beyond.
- Listen to Fin Valentine on the broch walk in the latest episode of the Active Outdoors podcast – available from Friday. Visit hnmedia.co.uk/activeoutdoors or search Active Outdoors on your usual podcast platform.
Route details
Clachtoll beach and broch
Distance 1.5 miles/3km return
Terrain Grassy path/foreshore, boggy in places
Start/finish Clachtoll beach car park
Map OS Landranger 15; OS Explorer 442
Digging deep into history on a fascinating excursion to an excavated Iron Age broch on the north-west coast
