Satellite Imagery
Satellite Imagery
HER: Shetland Amenity Trust 2 (None)
NMR: HU 59 SE 1 (1390)
SM: 2084
NGR: HU 5780 9334
X: 457800 Y: 1193340 (OSGB36)
The Sna Broch has been reduced to no more than an arc of ramparts and ditches at the top of a beach. Sited on soft till deposits rather than the typical precipitous locations more usually adopted by promontory forts, there is now insufficient evidence to demonstrate whether these were simply the outworks of a broch or whether they incorporate elements of a promontory enclosure, the rocks lying some 70m offshore perhaps indicating its possible extent. Nevertheless, the arc includes the remains of at two ditches with external ramparts and it is likely that there was also a third rampart within the inner ditch rather than simply the wall of the broch (RCAHMS 1946, 55-6, no.1210, fig 542; MacKie 2002, 119); recent fieldwork along the shore has observed evidence of waterlogged deposits beneath rubble in the inner ditch. On the S the outermost rampart returns to meet the middle rampart, a configuration that possibly indicates that this was the site of an entrance, though the RCAHMS investigators attribute it to access to a well noted by earlier visitors in one of the ditches (Low 1879, 166; Hibbert 1822, 387). The RCAHMS plan drawn up in 1930 identifies a gap in the outer rampart at the N end of the arc as the remains of an entrance. Pottery and hammerstones have been recovered from the eroding section, including material from beneath one of the ramparts (Fojut 1983, 21).
Citizen Science: ✗
Reliability of Data: Confirmed
Reliability of Interpretation: Unconfirmed
X: -105275 Y: 8538952 (EPSG: 3857)
Longitude: -0.9457052852990554 Latitude: 60.61940562792435 (EPSG:4326)
Country: Scotland
Current County or Unitary Authority: Shetland Islands
Historic County: Shetland
Current Parish/Community/Council/Townland: Fetlar
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 | ✗ |
If there was a promontory here, erosion with extreme prejudice has removed it, leaving no more than an arc of defences
| 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: 2.0m
N/A
Reliability: D - None
| Pre 1200BC | ✗ |
| 1200BC - 800BC | ✗ |
| 800BC - 400BC | ✗ |
| 400BC - AD50 | ✓ |
| AD50 - AD400 | ✗ |
| AD400 - AD 800 | ✗ |
| Post AD800 | ✗ |
| Unknown | ✗ |
| Pre Hillfort: | None |
| Post Hillfort: | None |
| Artefactual: | Pottery and hammerstones recovered from the erosion |
None
| 1st Identified Written Reference (1774): | Noted by George Low (1879, 166) |
| Earthwork Survey (1822): | Sketch plan by Samuel Hibbert (1922, 387) |
| 1st Identified Map Depiction (1877): | Annotated Sna Brough on the 1st edition OS 6-inch map (Shetland 1881, sheet 12) |
| Earthwork Survey (1930): | Plan and description (RCAHMS 1946, 55-6, no.1210, fig 542; RCAHMS SHD 15/1-2) |
| Other (1934): | Scheduled |
| Other (1969): | Visited by the OS |
| Other (1971): | Visited by Raymond Lamb (1980, 63-4, fig 24) |
| Other (2015): | Description and photographs by SCAPE (no.12939; https://scharp.co.uk/sites-at-risk/12939/) |
Possibly the site of a broch, but this has been destroyed by erosion before the 19th century
Supposed to have been a well in one of the ditches, but this must represent later usage
| None | ✓ |
| Spring | ✗ |
| Stream | ✗ |
| Pool | ✗ |
| Flush | ✗ |
| Well | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
Broch
| 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 | ✗ |
Pottery and hammerstones have been picked up here (RCAHMS 1946, 56, no.1210), including pottery from beneath on of the ramparts (Fojut 1983, 21)
| No Known Finds | ✗ |
| Pottery | ✓ |
| Metal | ✗ |
| Metalworking | ✗ |
| Human Bones | ✗ |
| Animal Bones | ✗ |
| Lithics | ✗ |
| Environmental | ✓ |
| Other | ✓ |
NO APPARENT FEATURES
| APs Not Checked | ✗ |
| None | ✓ |
| Roundhouses | ✗ |
| Rectangular Structures | ✗ |
| Pits | ✗ |
| Postholes | ✗ |
| Roads/Tracks | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
See main summary
| 3: | None |
| 2: | None |
Guard Chambers: ✗
Chevaux de Frise: ✗
| 1. Simple Gap (North east): | The terminals of the outermost rampart are staggered slightly to either side of the gap |
| 2. Other Forms (South east): | The outermost rampart returns to join the middle rampart as if part of an entrance, but now heavily eroded |
probably three ramparts with intermediate ditches, cutting around the landward side
| Area 1: | Noneha. |
| Total: | Noneha. |
Total Footprint Area: Noneha.
None
| ✗ | None |
| ✗ | None |
| NE Quadrant: | 3 |
| SE Quadrant: | 3 |
| SW Quadrant: | 0 |
| NW Quadrant: | 0 |
| Total: | 3 |
| 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: 2
| ✗ | None |
Fojut, N (1983) 'Snabrough Fort (Fetlar p), pottery'. Disc Exc Scot (1983), 21
Hibbert, S (1822) A Description of the Shetland Islands. Constable and Co: Edinburgh
Lamb, R G (1980) Iron Age promontory forts in the Northern Isles, Brit Archaeol Rep, BAR British Ser 79. BAR: Oxford
Low, G (1879) A Tour through the Islands of Orkney and Schetland in 1774, in Anderson, J. Kirkwall
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. BAR British Series 342: 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