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Home , Broch, Longhouse, Mousa, Vementry

Brochs Warning ’s most spectacular sites are some of the 80 Many of Shetland’s sites are scheduled and it is illegal visible Iron Age brochs which are located around the to dig into them or disturb them in any way, even if you coast. From the wall head of there is a do have the landowner’s permission. Play safe and do good view of both the sound and of the Broch of not disturb any sites - they are Shetland’s Heritage for Burraland, opposite (at Sandwick). It is possible to see everyone to enjoy. from one broch to the next in the South Mainland, and The official record of the sites in Shetland, the Sites and part of their purpose must have been Monuments Record, is held at Shetland Amenity Trust, to act as a network of watch Garthspool, , Shetland, ZE1 0NY. to guard the shores. Tel: 01595 694688. Inside the , we think there were If you find any objects when you are exploring, in Scottish Discover yesterday tomorrow several wooden floors and numbers Law, they must be reported. Staff at the Shetland of people must have lived inside. The Museum and Archives, Hay’s Dock, Lerwick will be area around the broch was often pleased to help you. Tel: 01595 695057. A broch was solid at enclosed - an outer defence in times ground level, other than of danger and, later, additional where there were cells houses were built in this courtyard. Some Useful Contacts Brochs are very enigmatic and so Shetland Museum Hay’s Dock, Lerwick, archaeologists have carried out and Archives: Tel: 01595 695057 major work at ; Heritage Centre: , Unst, unfolding the story of the broch and Tel: 01957 711528 the Iron Age Village which surrounds Interpretive Centre: Houbie, Fetlar, it. Clickimin Broch, on the edge of Tel: 01957 733206 Lerwick, stands several metres high and is easily accessible. Mousa is the The Old Haa: Burravoe, Yell, Tel: 01957 722339 best preserved broch in (brochs are not found outside Tangwick Haa Museum: Eshaness, Tel: 01806 503389 Scotland) standing 13 metres high Museum: Main Street, Scalloway Mousa Broch is 13m with a staircase between the double Heritage Centre: Leiraness, Bressay, high with a staircase wall to the top. Off the beaten track, Tel: 01595 820750 between the double the striking red granite broch at Hoswick Visitor Centre: Hoswick, Sandwick, wall at the top Culswick, West Mainland, the - Tel: 01950 431406 preserved broch at Burraness, Yell, and the broch on Quendale Mill: Quendale, , the edge of the Loch of Houlland, Eshaness, are just Tel: 01950 460969 some of the treats in store for the walker. George Waterston Memorial Centre: ,Tel: 01950 460405 Clickimin Broch Mousa Ferry: Sandwick, Tel: 01950 431367

Contents copyright protected - please contact Shetland Amenity Trust for details. Whilst every effort has been made to ensure the contents are accurate, the funding partners do not accept responsibility for any errors in this leaflet.

Wherever you look in Houses for the Dead Burnt Mounds Shetland you will be The earliest Shetlanders were buried in , the If you find a turf covered heap of sure to find the majority built in the shape of a heel. The remains were fist-sized, heat-shattered stones remains of ancient laid in a small chamber in the centre. Who was buried beside a burn, it will be a Bronze Shetlanders who have Stanydale temple on Shetland’s Westside in them? We do not know - there aren’t enough for the Age . been there before you. Low intensity use of whole population and the chambers are small. Burnt mounds are usually Perhaps the bodies were laid out for animals and birds the hill land in more recent times and the crescent shaped and might have a to eat, and just a few bones from each person were put box of stone slabs visible in the scarcity of timber means that these remains inside the . A ceremony might have taken place in centre. Archaeologists debate are some of the best that you will find in the concave façade at the front of the cairn. Even so, their use. Were they sites, Britain. there was not room for many meat being boiled in the trough by people inside. heating stones in a fire and Tangwick, Eshaness. Excavated burnt mounds The biggest cairns are on placing them into the water? seem to have industrial In addition there are the spectacular and hilltops (e.g. Ronas Hill) but Experiments at Tangwick beneath them internationally important sites of Mousa broch there are also very impressive demonstrated that this was (Scotland’s best preserved broch), and cairns on lower land - usually difficult. Perhaps water was taken from the trough and Clickimin, (multi-period sites several metres high). on knowes which command poured over hot stones to create steam for a sauna, or Shetland is indeed a treasure trove from the past. good views. Punds Water and to make felt, or was it for a more smelly purpose, such are examples not to as tanning or fulling? Burnt mounds were usually well Ancient Crofts be missed. away from the houses. Cruester, Bressay Shetlanders have been working A burial chamber or demonstrates how complex these sites can be. There in Pettigarth’s Field on the land, keeping sheep and the island of are some spectacular burnt mounds on Fair Isle, but cattle, and growing crops, for over with over 300 on the mainland alone, they are easy 5,000 years. On the Westside, to find. visitors can follow ancient Standing Stones boundary dykes for miles across Standing stones have been erected Shetland’s earliest refrigerators, these small the hill. The Scord of Brouster has throughout Shetland from underground passages which widen out slightly at the three excavated houses amongst prehistoric times to the present day. end, would have been good places for storing salted the fields. There are five houses at They formed boundary markers, meat over the winter. However, occasionally they are Stanydale, together with an navigation aids and others were Ancient fields, clearance found inside houses, under (e.g. Jarlshof). exceptionally large and very memorial stones. Among the cairns and houses can be Perhaps grain or items which needed to be kept dry found in many hillside impressive described by dramatically placed stones are were stored here. Crawl down a lit at locations in Shetland its excavator as a ‘temple’. Newing, Nesting; one along the Jarlshof, or, for the more adventurous smaller person, road to Muness, Unst and one in the disappear into the souterrain at Wadbister, Bressay garden of Leagarth House, Fetlar, (take a torch). where the Stone of the Ripples was Multi-period site at Jarlshof later moved and set into landscaped grounds. Underhoull, Unst- an Iron Age refrigerator The largest standing stone in Shetland is sited at Lund in the island of Unst Archaeology in Shetland

Left: at Hamar Right: Viking times re-enacted at Haroldswick

Many ruinous 12th century chapels stand in graveyards still used today as at Lund, Unst Left: A Pictish house under excavation at Old Scatness Right: Life in Pictish times Chapels By the 7th century AD, Shetland There are several houses, possibly one farm, which By the 12th century there were numerous chapels was firmly part of Pictland, and the evolved over the centuries, at Jarlshof. The ’ throughout Shetland. Most of these are now very most enduring legacy of these parliament (or Alting) was situated fairly centrally in ruinous but take time to visit Lund, where there is a people is their art work: carved Shetland in the fertile Tingwall Valley, where an islet fish carved on one of the window lintels. Framgord has stones and silverwork. Carved projects into the loch. fascinating crosses in the surrounding graveyard, as stone slabs have been found at Soapstone well as a Viking or Norse farm just outside. Both these Cullingsbrough, Bressay (where sites are in Unst, as is Kirkaby, where the early circular intriguingly the graveyard has The properties of soapstone, or graveyard is still visible. been built over the broch), and talc, were known 3,000 years Papil, Burra. Mail, before the Vikings ever came to was the find spot of several rune Shetland. The Vikings, however, and ogham stones and the Mail did not make much , but Figure. Some of these stones are instead used natural materials. Papil Stone - a They carved stone bowls straight replica stands in on display in the Shetland Replica objects carved in the churchyard Museum and Archives. out of the rock. The shapes of the soapstone during the living bowls were left in the hillside, and history project at Old Scatness Evidence of where bowls St. Ninian’s can be best seen at Catpund, were carved out of Catpund Cunningsburgh. The cliff faces at soapstone When the chapel on St. Ninian’s Isle Fethaland, North Mainland is also was excavated, the remains of 7th covered with these marks. century stone shrines were found, showing that the island was important in early Christian times. The chapel which is still visible is Kirkaby, chapel & graveyard Unst rather later in date (it lies over an Underhoull, souterrain, broch & Norse house Hamar, St. Ninian’s Chapel, Norse house earlier one). There are replicas of the reached via a Bordastubble, standing stone beautiful tombolo Lund, chapel silver treasure found here in the Framgord, chapel & Norse farm 3000 BC Shetland Museum and Archives. Interpretation is Sandwick, long house Da Birrier, early monastic site provided on site and the spot where the treasure was Belmont, Viking farm Fethaland, steatite, found (inside the chapel, near the altar) is marked with fishing booths, prehistoric house Burraness, broch a stone pillar. Yell Kame of Isbister, early monastic site Fetlar Monks & Hermits Ronas Hill, heel-shaped burial cairn Priests set up chapels in the heart of Leagarth, standing stone Shetland (eg Papil, Burra and St Ninian’s Isle) but the small cells on Loch of Houlland, remote stacks and peninsulas either broch 2000 BC housed monks and hermits or were Tangwick, Skerries places of retreat for the priests burnt mounds Punds Water, themselves. An example can be found at heel-shaped cairn Da Birrier, West Da Birrier, Yell (best viewed from the Sandwick, Yell Whalsay air), facing a similar settlement on the Bronze Age Pettigarth’s Field Kame of Isbister across . Today, these are Vementry, excavated houses heel-shaped & cairns still some of the most inaccessible places in Shetland. cairn

Scord of Brouster, excavated Newing, prehistoric houses A Haven for Vikings prehistoric & standing stone houses Shetland was right in the middle of the Viking seaways, 1000 BC and so it is hardly surprising that some of them stopped here, built houses and established farms. Bressay They brought with them a new style of building, a new Cruester, burnt mound Culswick, broch Cullingsbrough, cross slab, political system, new laws and a new language, broch & chapel Stanydale, temple Early Iron Age all of which have left their mark. Archaeologists Wadbister, souterrain have begun systematically investigating some of Clickimin, broch their in Unst, one of their first landfalls. Burra Papil, Tingwall, site of Alting How did these incomers fit in with the existing cross slab Mid Iron Age population? What difference did their flexible boats Mail, cross slab with keels and sun compasses and their advanced Catpund, steatite 0 fishing weights make to Shetland’s economy? Mousa, broch St Ninian’s Burraland, broch The current Viking Unst Isle, chapel project started by Late Iron Age excavating longhouse sites at Belmont and Hamar. Picts Old Scatness, broch & Both were altered through Iron Age village Jarlshof Vikings time, and the Belmont longhouse was longlived. Other interesting sites Artist’s impression of 1000 AD include the house on the life in Viking times Norse beach at Sandwick, and Framgord, a mile further along the coast, where the chapel associated with an unexcavated massive Viking farm building (to the north) is still in use today. There are small Crofting attractive early Christian crosses in the graveyard. The

longhouse at Underhoull has an Iron Age souterrain Houlalie, next to it and a broch above it. burnt mound Fair Isle Present 2000 AD