This
panel by Historic Scotland tells us....
"You
are standing inside the Broch, having come through the narrow
entrance passage. Partway down the passage can be seen the
setting for a wooden door-frame and the holes for a stout
bar behind it. Within the door is the entrance to a chamber
where a guard or a watchdog might have been stationed. We
do not know why the guard cell here at Dun Telve is on the
right, and at Dun Troddan on the left.
An inner entrance leads to a stair curving up between the
inner and outer face of a hollow, galleried wall. The section
of wall containing the upper stair, perhaps a weak point,
has collapsed and been removed. The narrowing of the walls
at their highest level suggest the stair may not have reached
right to the top. Gaps in the stonework of the inner wallface
were probably to lighten the mass of masonry rather than to
allow light into the galleries.
The stone ruins, even if imagined complete and standing over
10 m tall, are only half of the story. Modern excavators found
holes for stout wooden posts in the floor, hinting at a now
vanished, raised floor platform, or possibly even two, covered
by a sloping roof, with a central hole for letting light in
and smoke out. A ledge high on the inner wallface may have
carried the outer edge of such a structure.
It seems likely that the inhabitants lived in reasonable comfort
in this wooden structure rather than in the cramped, damp
and murky galleries within the stone walls, these being used
for storage. The stone stairway, too, may have been unimportant
in daily life, with access to the upper levels and wallhead
by wooden ladders.
Even as partly ruined structures, the brochs of Glenelg bear
witness to the ingenuity of Scotland's Iron Age farmers faced
with a threat whose nature we can only guess at."
|
How
to get there:
The village of Glenelg is a
few miles south of the Skye Bride. From the A87 at
Shiel Bridge by Loch Duich, cross the old stone bridge
up to Mam Ratagan pass to Glenelg. After a few miles
further south turn left to Glen Beag. On the right
hand side of the single track road you'll find Dun
Telve Broch and a few miles further on the left hand
side lies Dun Troddan Broch. |
