Monument record MHG10658 - Broch, Allt A' Chaisteil

(NC 7235 5752) Broch (NR) OS 6"map, (1964)

The remains of a broch impressively situated on a rocky knoll towering about 100 feet about plain. It measures 8.4m in diameter within a wall 4.2m broad and about 3m high internally. The outer face is visible to a height of 1m to 2m for almost whole circuit. A ledge-type scarcement can be seen on inner wall face (MacKie 1975). The entrance passage, which is said to be 0.6m wide, and to curve southwards (RCAHMS 1911) is still indentifiable in NW, one of roofing lintels being exposed in situ (MacKie 1975), Miss Young (1964) notes a triangular lintel-stone lying outside entrance and so dates the broch to the 2nd to early 3rd centuries AD. She also notes that it is defended by an earth and stone bank (RCAHMS 1911).
At the foot of slope of the knoll on E are 3 'huts' 3m to 4m in diameter and a rectangular building, all later than broch (OS 6"map, 1964).
RCAHMS 1911, visited 1909; A Young 1964; E W MacKie 1975; Visited by OS (J L D) 2 May 1960.

A broch with outworks generally as described by previous authorities, except that it measures internally 9m E-W by 8.2m and the wall varies in width from 6.4m in S to 3.8m in E. (The marked increase in wall width in the S is probably due to the appreciable slope upon which wall is built in this arc.) The entrance in W arc is well-defined; no guard chambers are apparent. Within broch on N side, the scarcement mentioned by MacKie can be seen.
The summit of the hill appears to have been scarped, and two discontinuous lines of stones in the W probably demarcate the entrance approach to the broch. At the base of the scarp in the east is an outer defence comprising a wall revetted on its inner side by large stones visible intermittently. There are traces of a further outer wall or bank below the broch on the NW side. To the N is a pond with a dam at its W side, this and the "huts" and 'rectangular building' are later than the broch.
Visited by OS (J B) 20 December 1978.