When we had our indoor meeting in March, David and Christine
kindly brought along a DVD about re-constructing a broch. I decided there and then to find this re-construction
on my next visit to England – at Strathyre, it is on my way if I go via
Callender.
I found Strathyre easy enough , I have to drive through it
on my way south but had to ask some young men where the broch site was – in fact
it was less than 100 yds. from the car park – but there were no sign posts.
I was a bit disappointed to find the whole thing surrounded
by wire fencing . This meant I couldn’t
view the steps we saw being made and I had to take photos by sticking the
camera through the gaps in the fencing.
The entrance and scarcement were also rather lower than I expected –
probably only about 4 ft high – but I suppose their intention was to try out techniques
and money and time would have been limited.
What I saw was beautiful – but what most struck me was that they had the advantage of lovely
sedimentary stone which would have chipped/cut nicely into rectangular pieces. Our Skye broch builders had to work with much
less amenable rock – so I think needed to be much more skilled. No doubt on Skye there were workers who had acquired skills through generations of workers accustomed
to dealing with local stone . Some
believe that brochs were built by itinerant bands of broch builders – I don’t
think this is possible. The ideas will
have travelled but itinerant builders would not have had the skills to work with
local stone. What do you think?
Anyone travelling south – it is worth a 20 minute stop to have
a look –
Some photos attached – I am not sure what is the significance
of the lovely carved eagle – anyone know?
Just compare the stone from Strathyre (where incidentally
there is no real broch) to the stone from Dun Colbost
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