Monument record MHG11173 - Tormore

Tormore, Coich Burn, Strathbrora, NC71SE0003

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 is positioned high above a steep ravine containing a tributary of the river Brora. While it is not visible until you are almost on top of it, there are extensive views from the broch back down into the strath. Much of one side of the broch has in fact tipped over the edge and down into the ravine. (60)

Tormore survives as a large pile of stones, with the inner and outer faces of the original walls poking through intermittently. A chamber which was visible when the first description of the broch was written in the early part of the twentieth century is now no longer visible. (48)

(12.2m/16.4m/1.1m)

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

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

RCAHMS. 1911. Sutherland. Edinburgh: HMSO, 7, No. 23.

Information from SCRAN Project, March, 2000


NC71SE 3 7880 1087.

(NC 7880 1087) Broch (NR)
OS 6"map, (1969)

Situated on the edge of a ravine some 60 to 70ft above the burn, are the remains of a broch. The wall on the SW side has been demolished, but in the NW the outer face survives to a height of 3ft for a short distance, and in the E arc the inner face is 4ft high. The top of a chamber about 3ft across is exposed towards the NW arc.
RCAHMS 1911, visited 1909.

A severely denuded broch, generally as described by RCAHMS, surviving as a pile of bare stones through which both wall faces protrude intermittently, indicating an overall diameter of 16.4m, and a wall thickness of 4.2m at the SE side. The whole SW arc has collapsed over the ravine leaving only the basal course of the outer face. The chamber noted by RCAHM in the NW arc cannot be seen; it was possibly a guard chamber as the entrance appears to have been in the WNW. There is no trace of secondary buildings or an outer defence; two modern walls extend NW and S from the broch.
Revised at 1/10,000.
Visited by OS (R D L) 23 April 1964 and (N K B) 18 December 1975.