File:Tappoch Broch - eastern side - geograph.org.uk - 1024921.jpg

English: Tappoch Broch - eastern side [For a summary of the features of this broch, see the note at the end of this article.]

This is one of a series of photographs illustrating various features of the surviving walls of the broch; for the other photographs, see 1024967 / 1024931 / 1024954.

In Scotland, the Iron Age, when this structure was built, was the period from about 750 BC to about 100 AD. Brochs are usually found only in the north and west of Scotland, but Tappoch Broch is one of only a few southern examples. A number of interesting features can still be seen in the interior; this contrasts greatly with the outside of the broch, which simply presents the appearance of a large mound: 1024864.

The present photo is a view of the eastern side of the broch, taken while standing on the northern part of the wall-head. A gap in the wall, just above and to the right of centre in this image, is one end of the passage that formed the main entrance of the broch. At the time of the first excavation, this passage had a double lintel; at the time of writing, only a single lintel stone remains.

The features of this broch, as it might originally have appeared, are perhaps best exemplified in the exceptionally well-preserved Broch of Mousa: HU4523. Another very fine example is Dùn Chàrlabhaigh: NB1941.

For further details of this site, see the chapter on Torwood Broch in Susan Hothersall's "Archaeology Around Glasgow". See http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/site/47004/details/torwood+tappoch+broch/ (at Canmore) for full details, and for some aerial photographs.

[A technical note on positioning: from the 1:50000 and 1:25000 maps, it is debatable whether the broch straddles an OS grid-line or not. While re-examining the broch on 26-OCT-2009, I was able to confirm, after taking multiple GPS readings, that the wall-head of the broch (and therefore its interior) lies entirely within the gridsquare NS8384.]