peculiar features, it becomes evident that they all point more or less
obviously to the presence of a double intention in the minds of the
constructors of the Brochs. The design of the whole structure and the
arrangements of all its separate parts exhibit a careful and laborious
adaptation of means and material to the two main objects of shelter and
defence. The clever constructive idea of turning the house outside in as
it were, placing its rooms within its walls, and turning all their
windows towards the interior of the edifice, implies boldness of
conception and fertility of resource. The height of the wall, which
effectually secured the inmates against projectiles, also removed its
essentially weak upper part beyond reach of assault, while the pressure
of its mass knit the masonry of the lower part firmly together, and its
thickness made it difficult to force an entrance by digging through
it—if such a wall could be approached for this purpose when the whole of
its upper materials were deadly missiles ready to the hands of the
defenders. The door, securely fastened by its great bar, is too strong
to be carried by a rush. Placed four feet or more within the passage, it
can only be reached by one man at a time, and the narrowness of the
passage prevents the use of long levers. In all probability the door
itself is a slab of stone, and impervious to fire. But even if it is
forced, and entrance gained to the interior court, the enemy finds
himself as it were in the bottom of a well 30 to 40 feet in diameter
with walls 50 feet high, pierced on all sides by vertical ranges of
windows, or loopholes, commanding every foot of the space below, and
rising to the number of twenty or more, immediately over the door which
gives access to the galleries. In short, the concentration of effort
towards the two main objects of space for shelter and complete security
was never more strikingly exhibited, and no more admirable adaptation of
materials so simple and common as undressed and uncemented stone for
this double purpose has ever been discovered or suggested. Perhaps there
is no characteristic of the typical structure more remarkable than the
extreme constancy of its essential features. The uniformity of plan and
construction is so unvarying among all the known examples that there
exists no means of tracing the development of the form through a series
of primitive or immature stages. In this respect there is a striking
analogy between the Brochs and the Round Towers of Ireland. The Irish
Towers also appear fully developed, and exhibit a general uniformity of
plan and construction which is quite as remarkable in its manifestations
among them as it is among the Brochs.[76] Their origin is assignable to
peculiar circumstances in the history of the ecclesiastical communities,
and chiefly to their constant liability to sudden danger of plunder and
murder by roving bands of marauding Norsemen. This specialty of purpose
accounts for, and harmonises with, their specialty of form; and their
remarkable uniformity of plan is the natural result of the special
fitness of the typical form for its special intention—the provision of a
secure refuge from dangers which, though of frequent occurrence, were of
transient duration.
-----
Footnote 76:
It is to be observed that the type of Round Tower peculiar to
Scotland, and known by the name Broch, differs totally, and in all its
essential features, from the tall, slender, round Towers of
Ecclesiastical construction in Scotland and Ireland. The Brochs are
dry-built, the Ecclesiastical Round Towers are lime-built. No hewn
stone is used in the construction of a Broch; the doors and windows of
the Ecclesiastical Round Towers are often of hewn stone, and sometimes
ornamented with sculptures. The Brochs have their chambers, stairs,
and galleries in the thickness of the wall enclosing the central area;
the lime-built Round Towers possess none of these features. The Brochs
have their doorways always on the ground and their windows opening to
the interior area; the Ecclesiastical Round Towers have their windows
opening in the exterior wall, and their doors placed at a considerable
height above the ground. There is thus no point of similarity between
the two types of structure except their external roundness.
-----
In Scotland the area which is chiefly occupied by the Brochs was
peculiarly exposed to similar occurrences. Over the whole of the
northern and western districts there ebbed and flowed continuously for
centuries a species of irregular intermittent warfare, consisting
chiefly of plundering forays by bands of foreign marauders. And as the
special association of the Round Towers of Ireland with the
ecclesiastical sites of the country supplies the clue to their special
purpose, the Brochs of Scotland have also their special association from
which their special purpose may also be fairly deduced. Although they
are often placed in situations of natural strength, yet, as a rule, they
mark the area of the best land in the districts in which they are
situated. This is specially true of their local distribution in
Caithness, while in Sutherland we see them thickly planted in the
fertile straths, and following the courses of the rivers to distances of
twenty-five or thirty miles inland. They are therefore the defensive
strongholds of a population located upon the arable lands, and not in
the mountain fastnesses of the country; and their peculiar nature as
exceptionally secure places of refuge for non-combatants and cattle, and
for storage of produce, explains the fitness of their association with
the arable soil of the area in which they are most abundantly present.
Against such oft-recurring but transient dangers to the cultivators and
to the produce of their soil there could be no more effective system of
defence provided than a multitude of _safes_, which should be
burglar-proof, and big enough to contain the families, goods, and cattle
of their proprietors.[77]
-----
Footnote 77:
In some Archæological Notes contributed to the _Academy_ of March 25,
1882, on the Terra d’Otranto in the South of Italy, M. Lenormant
mentions a peculiar usage still kept up by the inhabitants of the
provinces of Bari and Lecce of constructing in their fields structures
of uncemented stones called _truddhu_, which exactly reproduce on a
smaller scale the type, arrangements, and mode of building
characteristic of the Nuraghi of Sardinia, the Sesi of the island of
Pantellaria, and the Talayots of the Balearic Islands. Like the
Nuraghe, the Truddhu is a massive conical tower of uncemented stones
with a central circular chamber rudely vaulted by the overlapping of
the successive courses of its masonry. A low door gives access to the
chamber. Sometimes a second chamber is constructed over the first, and
approached by a narrow flight of steps winding along the side of the
tower. These steps are present even when there is no second chamber,
and forming a spiral round the outside of the tower, they give access
to the paved platform on the top of the structure. The Truddhu serves
as a shelter in bad weather and as a dwelling-place by night in the
agricultural season, as the peasant proprietors often live in the
towns and travel to and fro in bands for fear of brigands. Sometimes
this structure is changed into a permanent home, and the village of
Alberto-Bello consists wholly of houses of this form. Thousands of
these constructions stud the plains. Some are being built, others are
in all stages of dilapidation and decay. Although it is almost
impossible to distinguish those that are ancient from those that were
made but yesterday, M. Lenormant is of opinion that the origin of the
custom must be referred to prehistoric times. A similar custom of
constructing stone-built towers of refuge also prevails in the
Caucasus, and Mr. Freshfield speaks of having as many as sixty of
these structures in view at one time.
-----
If it be thus suggested by the relations of the Brochs to the arable
lands of the districts in which they are situated, that they belonged to
the possessors and cultivators of the soil, the affinities of the
typical structure itself go far to show that in its character and origin
it is distinctively Celtic. None of its essential features have been
observed in any construction outside of the Celtic area. And within that
area no building with a stair and an arrangement of galleries similar to
that of a Broch has been met with out of Scotland. But the circular
wall, with chambers in its thickness, which may be regarded as the germ
from which the Broch structure has grown, is a characteristic feature of
Celtic construction. We have met with it in the walls of the cashels
surrounding the ecclesiastical settlements of Christian times. It is
common in Irish Cloghauns and Scottish beehive houses, and is so
persistently Celtic that it appears also in Wales and Cornwall. The
ground plan of the most perfect of a group of beehive huts at Bodinar,
in Cornwall (Fig. 184), exhibits an arrangement of oval chambers in the
thickness of its wall precisely similar to the arrangement which
prevails in the Brochs. The long narrow gallery (the essential feature
of the earth-houses of Scotland, Ireland, and Cornwall) is also a form
of construction which is specially characteristic of the Celtic area.
The typical Broch structure thus presents a combination of features and
forms of construction[78] which are found existing separately in other
constructions of Celtic character and origin, although the typical
combination which distinguishes the Broch structure from all others is
confined to Scotland alone.
-----
Footnote 78:
The ideal Broch is composed of a series of galleries like those of the
earth-houses, superimposed upon a basement with a ground plan like
that of the structure at Bodinar, and connected by a stair. Although
the stone forts of Ireland occasionally exhibit chambers within the
thickness of their walls and have double stairs placed against the
interior face of the wall to give access to the wall-head, they never
have galleries superimposed on each other, and stairs in the thickness
of the wall.
-----
[Illustration: Fig. 184.—Ground plan of Structure at Bodinar, Cornwall.]
* * * * *
In the previous course of Lectures it was shown that as a nation we are
the possessors of the remains of a school of art exemplified in a series
of monumental types which are so truly unique that no other nation
possesses a single example. It has now been demonstrated that we are
also the possessors of the remains of a school of architecture which is
as truly unique and even more pronounced in its features of absolute
individuality. I do not claim for it any higher merit than that it has
designed a typical form of structure possessed of almost perfect fitness
for the purposes for which it was intended. It has no special beauty of
form, nor is there evident in any of its parts the least attempt at
ornamentation or decorative construction. But, judged by its proper
standard—the measure of its fitness for its special purpose—its peculiar
characteristics fulfil the most exacting requirements of architectural
criticism. The fact that this peculiar type of structure exists only in
one area must necessarily have some significance in relation to the
history of architecture; but the fact that their remains may still be
counted by hundreds must also have great significance in relation to the
unwritten history of Scotland, for it is obvious that the presence
within its area of this vast series of massive structures, so closely
alike in their general features, and so admirably contrived in their
special arrangements, implies a wide-spread concentration of thought and
energy towards a common object which is found only in communities that
have attained to a comparatively high condition of general culture and
social organisation.
LECTURE V.
(31ST OCTOBER 1881.)
THE BROCHS AND THEIR CONTENTS.
In 1852 the late Mr. A. H. Rhind of Sibster, the founder of the Rhind
Lectureship, made a systematic investigation of an ancient structure at
Kettleburn, near Wick, in Caithness. It was a work of great magnitude,
employing a number of men for upwards of three months.[79] It is easy
for us, with more extended knowledge of this class of buildings, to
recognise the features of the structure as those of a Broch, although it
was not so considered by Mr. Rhind.
-----
Footnote 79:
An account of the excavation, with plans and drawings, was given by
Mr. Rhind in the _Archæological Journal_, vol. x. p. 212; and also in
the first volume of the _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of
Scotland_, vol. i. p. 265.
-----
The external appearance of the ruin was that of a mound somewhat more
than 120 feet in diameter, and 10 feet high. It stood in a cultivated
field; the plough had regularly passed over it for a quarter of a
century, and a cottage had been built out of one of its sides. Though
thus diminished and dilapidated, there remained enough of its structure
underneath the surface to show clearly what were its general features.
[Illustration:
Fig. 185.—Ground plan of Broch of Kettleburn, near Wick, Caithness.
(From a Plan by Mr. A. H. Rhind.)
]
When fully cleared from the ruin of its upper portion, the lower part of
the building showed a circular construction (_b b_ in the accompanying
plan, Fig. 185), consisting of a wall 15 feet thick, surrounding a
central area of 30 feet diameter. The doorway (_e_) passing straight
through the wall, was flanked by a guard-chamber (_t_) on either side.
Remains of two oblong chambers (_r_, _i_) constructed in the thickness
of the wall were also found some distance apart. The roofs of all the
chambers were gone, but the lintels remained on the passages leading
into them. There was a well with steps leading down to it in the central
area. It was 9 feet deep, and being covered for the support of a
partition wall (_p p_) which passed over it, was full of good spring
water when discovered. The area enclosed within the circular wall of the
Broch was subdivided into irregularly-shaped spaces (_m_, _s_, _o_) by
walls built across it in various directions, and abutting on the main
wall. I shall have more to say of such irregular constructions within
and around these towers when we come to deal with them in other cases,
which show that they are secondary constructions, built out of and upon
the fallen materials of the primary edifice. The area outside the tower
for a distance of 25 feet from its external wall was covered by the
ruins of similar irregular constructions (_c d_), and the whole was
surrounded at that distance from the central tower by a wall (_a_) 3
feet thick, of whose height little more than the foundations remained.
The objects found during the excavation of the buildings are preserved
in the Museum. They were not very numerous, but they formed the first
collection made by the systematic excavation of a Broch, and thus were
possessed of inestimable value and interest. In point of fact, the gift
of this collection to the National Museum gave a new character to the
collection of Scottish antiquities, and a new direction to the science
of Scottish Archæology. The Museum had previously been enriched by
multitudes of donations of objects illustrating the unwritten history of
the country, but they were mostly objects whose associations and
relations were matters of inference and speculation. This group of
objects, on the other hand, was one of which it could be said—(1) that
they were related to each other by their common association with a
single inhabited site; (2) that they all had relations with a certain
typical form of structure; (3) that very various characteristics of
form, material, art, and industry were shown to be thus
inter-associated; (4) that the condition and culture of the occupants of
the structure are truly disclosed by the study of this group of relics,
in so far as the objects of which it is composed are capable of
affording such indications; and (5) that the special knowledge thus
acquired from the study of a group of relics derived from one structure
is also an important contribution to our general knowledge of the class
to which it belongs.
The group of objects recovered from the ruins of the Broch consisted—(1)
of manufactured articles used in connection with the daily life of the
inmates; and (2) of objects not manufactured, which were plainly the
refuse of their food.
The manufactured articles included objects fabricated in stone and bone,
bronze and iron. The stone objects were principally querns or stones of
the old small hand-mills for grinding grain; stone pounders or oblong
naturally rounded pebbles of various sizes, having their ends worn down
by use; flat circular discs of thin slaty stone, varying from 3 or 4 to
10 or 12 inches diameter, which might have served such purposes as are
still occasionally served by similar articles in country dairies and
kitchens; oval-shaped boulders of sandstone, [Illustration: Fig.
186.—Lamp of Sandstone from Broch of Kettleburn.] having roughly-formed
oval or cup-shaped cavities in their upper surfaces, which may have held
a dab of tallow, with a wick of tow or moss, and thus served as lamps
(Fig. 186); other hollowed cup-shaped or bowl-shaped stones, more
regularly formed externally and internally, some of which were furnished
with handles, and were therefore obviously domestic dishes; seven stone
whorls for the spindle; several whetstones and various other articles of
indeterminate purpose.
[Illustration: Fig. 187.—Long-handled Comb of Bone, from Broch of
Kettleburn.]
Among the articles fashioned in bone were pins and bodkins, made out of
the long bones of various animals; rounded knobs like buttons, cut out
of the outer table of the jaw-bone of the whale, and retaining part of
the loop of iron inserted into them; and two long-handled combs (Fig.
187) of the same material, furnished with stout teeth, about an inch in
length, at the end of the handle. These peculiar implements are so
frequently found in Brochs that no considerable group of Broch relics is
without them. They are of great interest; but their purpose has to be
inferred from considerations of their form, associations, and marks of
use. It is sufficiently obvious from their form, that as _long-handled_
combs they are quite distinct in character from the ordinary
double-edged combs for the hair, which are also common in Brochs.
The objects in bronze found in the Broch of Kettleburn were a small
bronze pin and a pair of bronze tweezers of large size (Figs. 188, 189),
4½ inches in length by 1¾ inch in breadth, elegantly formed and
ornamented in a style that is suggestive of the peculiarly bold and
effective ornamentation of the metal-work of the early Celtic period,
described in a former Lecture. They are 4¾ inches in length and 1¾
inches in width. Their special purpose is unknown;[80] but they are
still strong and serviceable for any purpose for which such implements
may have been employed. They possess a peculiar interest as being the
only pair of tweezers known to have been found in Scotland.
-----
Footnote 80:
Bronze tweezers are not uncommon accompaniments of female interments
of the Bronze Age in Denmark, and it has been suggested that they were
used as sewing implements when the material to be sewed was skin and
the thread a thong. This supposition is strengthened by the fact that
small awls of bronze are occasionally found with them, and it is
obvious that the end of a thong hardened in the fire, and pushed
partially through the holes bored by an awl, could be readily seized
by such a pair of tweezers and so dragged tight. But the tweezers
found in the Kettleburn Broch do not belong to the Bronze Age. Their
ornamentation is that of the Iron Age, and they were found in
association with objects of iron.
-----
[Illustration: Figs. 188, 189.—Front and side views of Bronze Tweezers
from Broch of Kettleburn (4½ inches in length).]
The objects of iron were mostly in such a fragmentary condition and so
greatly oxidised that little more could be said of them than that they
were portions of implements of iron.
The fragments of pottery were abundant. They were coarse in texture and
unglazed. They mostly represented globular vessels with everted rims and
bulging sides.
The unmanufactured objects consisted chiefly of bones and shells, which
were so abundant that they were evidently the remains of a long
accumulation of the refuse of the food of a considerable number of
individuals who had neither fared scantily nor without variety. Their
diet had included beef and venison, pork and veal, mutton and lamb, fish
and shell-fish, with an occasional fowl. The animal remains were
determined by Mr. Quekett, who notes that the bones and teeth of a small
horse, larger, however, than the Shetland pony, occurred in great
numbers; there were also remains of a horse of much greater size. The
other animals were red-deer and roe-buck, the ox, sheep of small size,
goats, and swine. Many remains of dogs were found, some indicating a
variety larger than a pointer, others being smaller. There were also
bones of the whale and seal, and some remains of a bird of the size of
the heron or swan. The fish-bones were not determined. The shell-fish
were principally the periwinkle, the whelk, and the limpet. A few human
bones were found intermixed with the relics, but there is no record of
their precise associations, and other examples will show that the mounds
covering these ruined Brochs were frequently selected as burying-places
in subsequent ages. The occurrence of the bones of the dog and the
horse, the seal and the whale among the food refuse of a community, does
not necessarily imply that the animals were eaten. But there is reason
to believe that tastes differed in this respect at different times. The
horse was eaten among the northern nations of Europe till within the
historic period. The whale appears down to the sixteenth century among
the provision made for rich and royal tables in Scottish and English
records. The seal was salted with the ashes of burnt seaware, and eaten
in the Hebrides in the beginning of the last century. While, therefore,
it may be a fair inference from the occurrence of many bones of these
animals in the food refuse of this Broch that its occupants used the
flesh of such beasts as a common article of diet, it is obviously an
equally fair admission that they are no more to be regarded as savages
on that account than the people of historic times who were partial to
the same kind of food. In point of fact, so far as the evidence goes,
there is no reason for attributing to them an exceptionally low
condition of culture or civilisation. We have seen that the type of
defensive dwelling with which we find them associated is one which
possesses remarkable features of constructive merit and originality of
design. Their diet was not less varied in kind and quality of nutriment
than that of modern times. They possessed iron and bronze, and their
manufactured implements show that they were neither destitute of
technical skill nor deficient in artistic taste.
[Illustration: Fig. 190.—Section of Chamber in Broch of Kintradwell,
showing rude vaulting of roof. (From a Drawing by Rev. Dr. Joass.)]
The Broch of Kintradwell, three miles north of Brora, excavated by Rev.
Dr. J. M. Joass,[81] was situated on a natural terrace close to the edge
of the declivity which marks the old sea-margin of the east coast of
Sutherlandshire. Previous to its excavation it was a rounded
grass-covered knoll. Within this mound, formed of the debris of the
structure, the basement of the broch was found entire to the height of
about 14 feet. The circular wall, 18 feet in thickness, enclosed a
central space 31 feet in diameter. The doorway was 7 feet high, with
inclined instead of perpendicular sides, so that the width was 3½ feet
at the bottom and 3 feet at the top. The entrance passage went straight
through the wall, and was provided with checks for two doors, the first
at 6 feet within the outer face of the wall, and the second 8 feet
farther in. These checks were formed by wall-fast slabs whose edges
projected, the wall being also slightly set back at their inner faces,
and a corresponding slab on edge projected a few inches above the floor
across the passage-way to check the bottom of the door. Between the two
doors a guard-chamber opens on the right of the passage. The sill of its
doorway is 2 feet above the floor, the opening 4 feet high by 2 feet
wide, and the passage into the chamber 4½ feet in length. The guard-room
itself is circular in form on the ground-plan, 7 feet in diameter, and
11 feet high, and roofed in the usual way by overlapping stones (Fig.
190). The whole length of the passage leading through the wall into the
central area is 18 feet, and the lintels covering it are 8 inches apart.
This feature is frequently seen, and as there is often a vacant space
which may have formed an apartment over the lintels of the passage, the
openings left between them may have had a special purpose in connection
with the defence of the doorway. To the left of the main entrance was an
oval-shaped chamber 11 feet long and 10 feet high, constructed in the
thickness of the wall; and, still farther to the left, were the remains
of the staircase, also constructed in the interior of the wall, with an
oblong chamber at the stair-foot. Thirteen steps of the stair remained,
but the galleries above were gone. In one side of the area was a well 7
feet deep, with steps leading down to a point 3 feet from the bottom. A
stone cup (Fig. 191), presumably the common drinking-cup of the
establishment, lay near the steps of the well. In its constructive
features and arrangements this Broch is similar to all the others that
have been described. But it also presents some features which have not
hitherto been noticed, because they have either been wanting or only
obscurely presented in previous examples. The inner wall of the court or
central area was faced by a roughly-built wall about a foot in
thickness, rising to a height of about 8 feet, and there terminating and
forming a scarcement projecting from the main wall. This inner shell or
scarcement, although bonded with the main wall at the door-corners, was
not so throughout. It was evidently an addition to the original wall
built against its inner face all round, at some time subsequent to the
construction of the main wall.[82] We shall meet with this feature in
other examples, and in circumstances which will clearly demonstrate its
secondary character.
-----
Footnote 81:
See a paper by Rev. Dr. J. M. Joass, in _Archæologia Scotica_, vol. v.
p. 95, entitled “The Brochs of Cinn Trolla, Cairn Liath, and Craig
Carril, in Sutherland,” etc., with plans and drawings.
Footnote 82: