By Bernie Bell

The approach of Brochtober, and the OAS virtual Brochtoberfest https://orkneyarchaeologysociety.org.uk/event/brochtoberfest/,  got me thinking about brochs, and I had the idea of building a mini-broch in our garden!  To be honest, it will be Mike doing the building, as heaving lumps of rock about is a thing of the past for me.  We turned our minds to how to do it…..

In our shed we still had an old dustbin from before the advent of wheelie bins, and I thought – turn it upside down to give a basic structure, build stones around it, and you’ve got the outline of a broch.

We have a heap of stones from when Mike cleared the bank at the side of our garden, which we have jokingly referred to as our ‘Installation’ –  we knew it would come in handy one day – and it occurred to me that we could raid the Installation for broch building material……

And so, Mike began to build The Broch of Gorseness……

It won’t be the first one, as the remains of what was possibly/probably a broch were found when a house was built just down the road from us …….

https://canmore.org.uk/site/2425/north-aittit

There’s a whole string of brochs along this section of coastline – to which we’re now adding our own!

To be continued……..

Brochtoberfest