Visited: June 18, 2019
Nybster broch stands on a cliff-girt headland, protected on three sides by vertical sandstone cliffs and by a ditch that cuts off the promontory on its landward side.
The site is signposted just south of the village of Nybster, and there is a car park from which a good footpath heads south for 450 metres to the broch site. As you approach the broch, the first thing you will see is Mervyn’s Tower, a monument built of rough stones by local farmer John Nicholson to commemorate the work of Sir Francis Tress Barry who excavated the site in 1895-6.
Canmore states that Nybster is: ‘a site of major signifcance in the study of the development of the broch in that it comprises the ground-galleried block-house of a pre-broch promontory fort, a solid-based broch, and a post-broch settlement. The block-house, which displays broch-like features, including a passage checked for two doors, is probably to be dated not much before the first century BC if not within it‘.
Without doubt, Nybster is a complex side, and readers wishing to learn more about it can find copious details of the various structures and finds on the Canmore website.