Satellite Imagery
Satellite Imagery
HER: Orkney Islands 2286 (None)
NMR: HY 33 SE 2 (2286)
SM: 90218
NGR: HY 3716 3059
X: 337169 Y: 1030598 (OSGB36)
The well-known broch at Midhowe, which was taken into Guardianship following the excavations of 1930-33 (Callander and Grant 1934), stands on a heavily eroded coastal promontory which is also defended on the landward side by a massive stone wall accompanied by both an internal and an external ditch. The broch itself measures about 9m in diameter within a wall 4.5m in thickness and displays numerous architectural features, including its entrance facing out to sea on the W. The outer wall is some 7.5m thick at the very base, where the inner and outer faces rise from the bottom of the flanking ditches. The entrance is adjacent to the S margin of the promontory, where the wall thickens to 9.5m, creating a long and relatively broad passage running back from a narrow opening through the outer face. Curiously, this opening does not conform symmetrically to the broad causeway that has been left undug in the outer ditch, and nor has the wall been carried to the edge of the adjacent geo, leaving ready access around its S end along the cliff-edge, where a flight of rock-cut steps gives access to the inner end of the entrance passage. The wall was not sectioned at the time of the excavations, but it is likely that the various observations made at the time, including a vertical joint in the outer face of the wall at the NW end, where the face is also founded on secondary paving in the bottom of the outer ditch, indicate a long and complicated history of construction, in one phase of which the wall probably returned along the S margin of the promontory and the only access to the interior may have been via the flight of steps leading from the terrace along the cliff-edge; in this light, there is no reason why the earliest phase of this wall may not have predated the construction of the broch, enclosing an area measuring about 40m from NW to SE immediately to the rear of the wall by at least 27m transversely (0.08ha), and perhaps as much as 40m given due allowance for the heavy erosion of the deposits on the seaward side (c. 0.15ha). Confined between the foot of the broch and the outer wall on the NE is a complex of later buildings, which also overlies the infilled inner ditch.
Citizen Science: ✗
Reliability of Data: Confirmed
Reliability of Interpretation: Unconfirmed
X: -345132 Y: 8214525 (EPSG: 3857)
Longitude: -3.100376832848872 Latitude: 59.15758514902876 (EPSG:4326)
Country: Scotland
Current County or Unitary Authority: Orkney Islands
Historic County: Orkney
Current Parish/Community/Council/Townland: Rousay And Egilsay
Eroded on the seaward side and now protected by a seawall
| Extant | ✓ |
| Cropmark | ✗ |
| Likely Destroyed | ✓ |
None
| Woodland | ✗ |
| Commercial Forestry Plantation | ✗ |
| Parkland | ✗ |
| Pasture (Grazing) | ✗ |
| Arable | ✗ |
| Scrub/Bracken | ✗ |
| Bare Outcrop | ✗ |
| Heather/Moorland | ✗ |
| Heath | ✗ |
| Built-up | ✗ |
| Coastal Grassland | ✓ |
| Other | ✗ |
None
| Contour Fort | ✗ |
| Partial Contour Fort | ✗ |
| Promontory Fort | ✓ |
| Hillslope Fort | ✗ |
| Level Terrain Fort | ✗ |
| Marsh Fort | ✗ |
| Multiple Enclosure Fort | ✗ |
| Hilltop | ✗ |
| Coastal Promontory | ✓ |
| Inland Promontory | ✗ |
| Valley Bottom | ✗ |
| Knoll/Hillock/Outcrop | ✗ |
| Ridge | ✗ |
| Cliff/Plateau-edge/Scarp | ✗ |
| Hillslope | ✗ |
| Lowland | ✗ |
| Spur | ✗ |
Dominant Topographic Feature: None
| North | ✗ |
| Northeast | ✗ |
| East | ✗ |
| Southeast | ✗ |
| South | ✗ |
| Southwest | ✗ |
| West | ✗ |
| Northwest | ✗ |
| Level | ✓ |
Altitude: 5.0m
N/A
Extensively excavated, but despite the Roman objects recovered, there is little understanding of the overall chronology of the defences
Reliability: C - Low
| Pre 1200BC | ✗ |
| 1200BC - 800BC | ✗ |
| 800BC - 400BC | ✗ |
| 400BC - AD50 | ✗ |
| AD50 - AD400 | ✓ |
| AD400 - AD 800 | ✗ |
| Post AD800 | ✗ |
| Unknown | ✓ |
| Pre Hillfort: | Cup- and ring-marked stones |
| Post Hillfort: | Possibly the insertion of the broch, but also the later settlement. Conservation interventions include a seawall |
| Artefactual: | Roman objects recovered from the excavations |
RCAHMS holds an extensive archive of photographs, including aerial views
| 1st Identified Map Depiction (1879): | Named in Gothic type on the 1st edition OS 25-inch map (Orkney 1882, sheet 89.4) |
| Excavation (1930): | Callander and Grant 1934 |
| Excavation (1931): | Callander and Grant 1934 |
| Excavation (1932): | Callander and Grant 1934 |
| Excavation (1933): | Callander and Grant 1934 |
| Other (1934): | Guardianship |
| Other (1936): | Description largely based on the published report (RCAHMS 1946, ii, 193-200, no. 553, figs 273-8) |
| Other (1963): | and subsequently in 1985 for description by Euan MacKie (2002, 233-40) |
| Other (1972): | Resurveyed at 1:2500 by the OS |
| Other (1994): | Scheduled |
| Geophysical Survey (2010): | To the exterior identified a possible ditch extending away to the E and traces of anthropogenic soils (Brend 2010) |
| Excavation (2011): | area around hearth cleaned (Murray 2011) |
Occupied by the broch and a later settlement
A feature described as a cellar was found beneath the broch
| None | ✗ |
| Spring | ✗ |
| Stream | ✗ |
| Pool | ✗ |
| Flush | ✗ |
| Well | ✓ |
| Other | ✗ |
Broch and irregular later buildings
| No Known Features | ✗ |
| Round Stone Structures | ✗ |
| Rectangular Stone Structures | ✗ |
| Curvilinear Platforms | ✗ |
| Other Roundhouse Evidence | ✗ |
| Pits | ✗ |
| Quarry Hollows | ✗ |
| Other | ✓ |
Broch and later irregular buildings
| No Known Excavation | ✗ |
| Pits | ✗ |
| Postholes | ✗ |
| Roundhouses | ✗ |
| Rectangular Structures | ✗ |
| Roads/Tracks | ✗ |
| Quarry Hollows | ✗ |
| Other | ✓ |
| Nothing Found | ✗ |
None
| No Known Geophysics | ✓ |
| Pits | ✗ |
| Roundhouses | ✗ |
| Rectangular Structures | ✗ |
| Roads/Tracks | ✗ |
| Quarry Hollows | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
| Nothing Found | ✗ |
Extensive assemblage of artefacts including long-handled weaving combs of cetacean bone, other bone tools pins and beads, a hammer, handles of deer horn, part of a shale armlet, whorls, perforated stones and whetstones, pot-lids and lamps, both saddle and rotary querns, three bronze pins and several penannular brooches and a Roman patera, and numerous sherds of pottery including fragments of Samian ware.
| No Known Finds | ✗ |
| Pottery | ✓ |
| Metal | ✓ |
| Metalworking | ✓ |
| Human Bones | ✓ |
| Animal Bones | ✓ |
| Lithics | ✓ |
| Environmental | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
Broch and later irregular buildings
| APs Not Checked | ✗ |
| None | ✗ |
| Roundhouses | ✗ |
| Rectangular Structures | ✗ |
| Pits | ✗ |
| Postholes | ✗ |
| Roads/Tracks | ✗ |
| Other | ✓ |
See main summary
| 1: | None |
| 2: | None |
Guard Chambers: ✗
Chevaux de Frise: ✗
| 1. Passage-way/Corridor (South east): | Possibly a later configuration |
Single wall with two ditches cutting off a promontory
| Area 1: | 0.08ha. |
| Total: | 0.08ha. |
Total Footprint Area: Noneha.
None
| ✗ | But heavily eroded and may have enclosed as much as 0.15ha |
| ✗ | None |
| NE Quadrant: | 0 |
| SE Quadrant: | 1 |
| SW Quadrant: | 0 |
| NW Quadrant: | 0 |
| Total: | 1 |
| Partial Univallate | ✓ |
| Univallate | ✗ |
| Partial Bivallate | ✗ |
| Bivallate | ✗ |
| Partial Multivallate | ✗ |
| Multivallate | ✗ |
| Unknown | ✗ |
| Partial Univallate | ✗ |
| Univallate | ✗ |
| Partial Bivallate | ✗ |
| Bivallate | ✗ |
| Partial Multivallate | ✗ |
| Multivallate | ✗ |
None
| None | ✗ |
| Earthen Bank | ✗ |
| Stone Wall | ✓ |
| Rubble | ✗ |
| Wall-walk | ✗ |
| Evidence of Timber | ✗ |
| Vitrification | ✗ |
| Other Burning | ✗ |
| Palisade | ✗ |
| Counter Scarp Bank | ✗ |
| Berm | ✗ |
| Unfinished | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
Ditches
| None | ✗ |
| Earthen Bank | ✗ |
| Stone Wall | ✓ |
| Murus Duplex | ✗ |
| Timber-framed | ✗ |
| Timber-laced | ✗ |
| Vitrification | ✗ |
| Other Burning | ✗ |
| Palisade | ✗ |
| Counter Scarp Bank | ✗ |
| Berm | ✗ |
| Unfinished | ✗ |
| No Known Excavation | ✗ |
| Other | ✓ |
| ✗ | None |
| ✓ | None |
Number of Ditches: 2
| ✗ | None |
Brend, A (2010) 'Westness, Rousay, Orkney (Rousay and Egilsay parish), geophysical survey'. Disc Exc Scot, New Ser, 11 (2010), 124-5
Callander, J G, and Grant, W G (1934) The Broch of Midhowe, Rousay, Orkney. Proc Soc Antiq Scot 68 (1933-4), 444-516
Hedges, J W (1987) Bu, Gurness and the brochs of Orkney, part 3: the brochs of Orkney. Brit Archaeol Rep, British Series 165. BAR: Oxford (p 110-16)
Lamb, R G (1980) Iron Age promontory forts in the Northern Isles. Brit Archaeol Rep, British Ser 79. BAR: Oxford
MacKie, E W (2002) The roundhouses, brochs and wheelhouses of Atlantic Scotland c. 700BC - AD500: architecture and material culture Part 1 - The Orkney and Shetland Isles. Brit Archaeol Rep, British Ser 342. BAR: Oxford
Murray, D (2011) 'Mid Howe Broch, Orkney (Rousay and Egilsay parish) excavation'. Disc Exc Scot, New Ser, 12 (2011), 134
RCAHMS (1946) The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland. Twelfth report with an inventory of the ancient monuments of Orkney and Shetland, 3v. HMSO: Edinburgh
Ritchie, A (1995) Prehistoric Orkney. Batsford and Historic Scotland: London (p 108-12)
Sharman, P (2004) 'Midhowe Broch, Rousay (Rousay & Egilsay parish), watching brief'. Disc Exc Scot, New Ser, 5 (2004), 96
Atlas of Hillforts:
Wikidata:
This work is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
and should be cited as:
Lock, Gary and Ralston, Ian. 2024. Atlas of Hillforts of Britain and Ireland. Available at: https://hillforts.arch.ox.ac.uk
Document Version 1.1