Monument record MHG10698 - Broch, Eilean Garbh, Skail

(NC 7201 4732) Broch (NR) OS 6" map, (1962)

The site is now protected as a Scheduled Monument of National Importance under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act (1979) February 7th 2005
DEH(23/01/06)

The remains of a broch with outworks, discovered on edge of a rocky escarpment during fieldwork. The broch consists of footings of a wall about 4.2m broad and now of negligible height, enclosing an area some 8.3m in diameter, and having an entrance in SE. The defences consist of a double rampart and ditch springing from the rock edge behind broch on W and running through N,E & S, with a break opposite entrance on SE. A secondary enclosure 21m by 6m of boulder construction has been built within inner ditch on NE. This ditch is 8.5m wide and 3m deep and the outer ditch is 6m wide and 1.2m deep.
Visited by OS (J L D) 6 May 1960;
Visible on RAF air photograph 106G/Scot/UK/76: 4025-6.

The fragmentary remains of broch with outworks are as described by previous field investigator. It measures 15.2-15.7m overall diameter; base blocks of the outer face are visible intermittently through the tumble, but inner face cannot be identified with certainty. At easiest means of approach from S, outworks comprise a double rampart with outer ditches, but this fades in steepening W and E slopes to two outward-facing scarps. The discontinuous footings of an outer retaining wall occur in face of inner rampart at both sides of the entrance, and an arc of crude walling, about 4.2m long, against inner face of same rampart immediately west of the entrance may be the remains of a domestic structure. The later stone-walled enclosure built into the ditch partially overlays the entrance causeway through the outworks at its south end.
Revised at 1:10,000. Visited by OS (N K B) 18 December 1978.