Monument record MHG10835 - Broch, Kilbraur

Kilbraur, Strathbrora, NC80NW0004

Brochs are round, tower-like houses, their monumental size intended to display the wealth and status of the agricultural communities who lived in them. They were occupied in the later Iron Age and occur frequently in the north and west of Scotland. (41)

This broch survives as a circular, turf-covered mound, sitting on top of a natural mound, creating the very distinctive profile visible in the photograph, one which is characteristic of many brochs. The circle of stones crowning the summit is a recent vegetable plot. (43)

Quarry scoops are visible all over the mound. Most of the stonework has probably gone into the adjacent sheepfold or other buildings associated with the later township, which surrounds the broch. A mill lade has also been dug around the base of the knoll. (44)

Armit, I., 1997. Celtic Scotland. Edinburgh: Batsford.

Gourlay, R., 1996. Sutherland. An Archaeological Guide. Edinburgh: Birlinn.

RCAHMS. 1911. Sutherland. Edinburgh: HMSO, 7, No. 24.

Information from SCRAN Project, March 2000

NC80NW 4 8229 0987.

(NC 8229 0987) Broch (NR)
OS 6"map, (1969)

A circular structure, 30 yards in diameter on top and about 50 yards at its base with a height of about 30ft. A small enclosure on top has been used as a vegetable plot.
Name Book 1879.

A broch, which formerly occupied an isolated knoll, has been completely destroyed, and replaced by a sheepfold.
RCAHMS 1911, visited 1909.

All that remains of the broch is a turf-covered mound, 1.7m high, in which no structural details are exposed. The mound is surmounted by a "post-Clearances" circular enclosure. The broch is situated on the flattened summit of an isolated, natural knoll which has been scarped. Around the rim of the summit are the remains of a denuded wall reduced to a rickle of stones which encloses an area of about 36.0m in diameter. It has been quarried on the S side.
At a lower level towards the base of the knoll is an outer encircling wall, its outer face defined by occasional boulders, but largely reduced to a stone scatter. It is overlaid in places by later walls. It is destroyed in the N and NW arcs by the construction of a mill race, now dry.
Revised at 1/10,000.
Visited by OS (W D J) 26 April 1964 and (J B) 27 December 1975.

The broch was Scheduled by Historic Environment Scotland in 2016. <1>