Brough of Braebister

RCAHMS record no. HY20NW 20 is a mound 10 to 12 feet high mostly thought to be either the outwork to a broch (some instead go for a blockhouse underneath ) or an earlier promontory fort, the only dating evdence being broch-style pottery (finds lost), It lies ESE/WNW with an interior of the order 90’ by 55’. The isthmus neck is blocked by a bank 10’ wide and the same in height, in which Raymond Lamb saw walling traces with erect slabs amongst the rubble as well as what is left of a much slighter outer bank and ditch. On the mound antiquarians thought there had been a substantial stone structure reduced to slight scattered remains that led them to deduce 12’ thick walls consistent with a broch. Some large stones stood in situ, more so at the cliff’s west side. The mound’s slopes abound in walling traces and earthfast stones. A shell midden yielded those fragments of the coarse ware called broch-type. RCAHMS couldn’t find the midden later, but given how cnfusing the site lies I would suggest that this is the midden later found on the south side of the clifftop behind the supposed blockhouse. Much of the promontory contains wall traces and earthfast stones.