Monument record MHG1766 - Broch, Skinnet

John Miller's account, published in Edinburgh Daily Review of 1865, records the discovery of ‘two or three human skeletons’ in the broch at Skinnet: "one of them lay close to the fireplace, which still retained the strong red colour produced by using peat fuel" (Miller 1865, 6). He also noted a rock-cut well inside the broch and a dry ditch surrounding it. It is possible that the quarrying noted by the RCAHMS in 1911 was the result of the excavations which Miller recorded; these had taken place forty years before Miller’s account was written, placing them about 1825.
Info from George Watson, 30/08/99.

ND16SW 3 1257 6136.
(ND 1257 6136) Brough (NR)
OS 6" map, Caithness, 2nd ed., (1907)

The broch at Skinnet has had E side removed so that a segment, representing less than one half of the original remains of structure overgrown with grass, is all that exists.
RCAHMS 1911; J Anderson 1873

Classified as a broch. A Graham 1949

The remains of this feature now consist of a grass-covered mound of earth and stones, 23m long, 14m wide and 2m high. It is impossible without excavation to classify this as a broch.
Resurveyed at 1:2500. Visited by OS (R D) 16 February 1965

(ND 1257 6136) Broch (NR) (remains of) OS 6" map, (1970)

This mound is as described by the previous field investigator. An arc of stone spread to 4m tops mound. A measurement across this arc gives an approximate internal diameter of 15m; too great for a broch. The nature of mound cannot be classified from field inspection.
Visited by OS (J B) 6 October 1981

'Broch'. Dimensions: 21 x 13m. Grass-covered oval mound 3m high destroyed by quarrying on E and W sides.
R J Mercer, NMRS MS/828/19, 1995