Satellite Imagery
Satellite Imagery
HER: Shetland Amenity Trust 377 (None)
NMR: HP 51 SE 1 (84)
SM: None
NGR: HP 5711 1249
X: 457119 Y: 1212493 (OSGB36)
This fort occupies a precipitous promontory on the NW coast of the island of Unst, running out between two deep geos which have bitten back into the neck to leave little more than a narrow ridge linking to the cliff-line on the ESE. The defences comprise a single wall drawn across the rising ground on the seaward side of the neck, immediately behind which there has evidently been a stone structure, its walls now reduced to grass-grown mounds of rubble. The promontory is actively eroding, and its flat summit is now a maximum of 25m broad and tapers WNW to a narrow spit some 70m beyond the wall; formerly it was almost certainly much larger, and it was probably possible to descend the outcrops beyond this point virtually to sea level. Apart from the stone structure immediately to the rear of the wall, the low footings of two oval or sub-rectangular buildings can be seen towards the WNW end of the summit, where Raymond Lamb also identified a roughly square hollow in its surface (Lamb 1980, 36 fig 13, 86).
Citizen Science: ✗
Reliability of Data: Confirmed
Reliability of Interpretation: Confirmed
X: -106039 Y: 8578090 (EPSG: 3857)
Longitude: -0.9525666919993594 Latitude: 60.79143444384191 (EPSG:4326)
Country: Scotland
Current County or Unitary Authority: Shetland Islands
Historic County: Shetland
Current Parish/Community/Council/Townland: Unst
None
| 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: 30.0m
N/A
In the absence of excavation, there are neither stratified artefacts nor radiocarbon dates to provide a chronology for the defences.
Reliability: D - None
| Pre 1200BC | ✗ |
| 1200BC - 800BC | ✗ |
| 800BC - 400BC | ✗ |
| 400BC - AD50 | ✗ |
| AD50 - AD400 | ✗ |
| AD400 - AD 800 | ✗ |
| Post AD800 | ✗ |
| Unknown | ✓ |
| Pre Hillfort: | None |
| Post Hillfort: | Unclear whether the structures within the interior are associated with the wall across the neck |
There is no reason to believe that this promontory was ever the site of a broch, the appellation of 'brough' on the ist OS map merely signifying a place believed to be of antiquity
| 1st Identified Map Depiction (1878): | Annotated Brough on the 1st edition OS 6-inch map (Shetland 1882, sheet 2; Name Book, Shetland, p54) |
| Other (1930): | Description (RCAHMS 1946, iii, 143, no.1593 |
| Other (1969): | Visited by the OS |
| Earthwork Survey (1970): | Plan and description by Raymond Lamb (1980, 36 fig 13, 86) |
| Other (1978): | Visited by Noel Fojut (1978, 19) |
| Other (2013): | Visited by National Trust for Scotland staff |
Remains of a stone structure immediately behind the wall and the low footings of two oval or sub-rectangular buildings towards the WNW end of the summit, where Raymond Lamb also identified a roughly square hollow in its surface (1980, 36 fig 13, 86)
None
| None | ✓ |
| Spring | ✗ |
| Stream | ✗ |
| Pool | ✗ |
| Flush | ✗ |
| Well | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
None
| No Known Features | ✗ |
| Round Stone Structures | ✗ |
| Rectangular Stone Structures | ✓ |
| Curvilinear Platforms | ✗ |
| Other Roundhouse Evidence | ✗ |
| Pits | ✗ |
| Quarry Hollows | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
None
| 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 | ✗ |
None
| No Known Finds | ✓ |
| Pottery | ✗ |
| Metal | ✗ |
| Metalworking | ✗ |
| Human Bones | ✗ |
| Animal Bones | ✗ |
| Lithics | ✗ |
| Environmental | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
Traces of the buildings
| APs Not Checked | ✗ |
| None | ✗ |
| Roundhouses | ✗ |
| Rectangular Structures | ✓ |
| Pits | ✗ |
| Postholes | ✗ |
| Roads/Tracks | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
Must cross the neck on the SE
| 0: | None |
| 2: | Not visible but can only be approached from across the neck on the SE |
Guard Chambers: ✗
Chevaux de Frise: ✗
Single wall across a promontory
| Area 1: | 0.08ha. |
| Total: | 0.08ha. |
Total Footprint Area: Noneha.
None
| ✗ | None |
| ✗ | 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 | ✗ |
None
| 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: None
| ✗ | None |
Fojut, N (1978) 'Shetland, Geos of Brough: house'. Disc Exc Scot (1978), 19
Lamb, R G (1980) Iron Age promontory forts in the Northern Isles. Brit Archaeol Rep, British Ser 79. BAR: Oxford
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
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