There’s More To Brochs Than ‘Choost an’ Owld Pile of Ston’ – to quote from the title of Ken McElroy’s dissertation!

By theorkneynews on June 11, 2022

By Bernie Bell

I received the latest Newsletter from the Caithness Broch Project and it has all sorts in it……. an update on the ‘new build’ broch which they are planning, as previously mentioned here…. https://theorkneynews.scot/2022/01/26/building-a-broch-on-going/.

Also……. next year’s calendar is in the shop already…. https://www.thebrochproject.co.uk/shop/ , along with lots of other broch-inspired good things.

We alternate between calendars from the Orkney Archaeology Society and the Caithness Broch Project…….hard to choose between them, so that seems like a fair approach to take!

With the permission of the good people at CBP, I’ll present a couple of ‘tasters’ copied from the Newsletter….

We were delighted to see that the wonderful Edwyn Collins was able to visit Ousdale Broch for the first time since 2004 in March, a place which holds ‘decades of memories’ for the singer-songwriter.

This is really fantastic – because this is what archaeology and our historic environment is all about: memories, moments and experiences. It’s as simple as this: we benefit from our past. And so we’ll continue to cherish, care for and celebrate our historic environment, as best as we can!

And…….this necklace…… just LOOK at it!

Another element of the ‘Spirit of the Highlands’ initiative is ‘Spirit Stories’, a collection of tales, stories and features on the Highlands. We also wrote a wee blog about the brochs of Caithness, which you can read here.

We were doubly delighted, however, to see that artist Justine Bainbridge had ‘responded’ to our own piece with this fantastic bit of jewellery (below). Justine says that she had “…never worked with silver until recently but drew inspiration from all the cairns and brochs of our ingenious ancestors!”

Well, we are totally blown away by this sumptuous, beautiful and evocative piece of artwork – thank you Justine!