Caisteal Grugaig Visit 27 June 2017

Caisteal Grugaig also known as Dun Totaig - visited on 27/6/17

Seven of us ventured out on a day which defied the weather forecast.  Rain forecast but never arrived.  We parked between Letterfearn and Totaig and met hardly anyone --apart from a hire car driven by foreigners who thought they were on the way to Eilean Donan castle!

It really is a beautiful little broch with so many of the typical broch features well preserved.  Approaching from the south in summer, as we did, high bracken hides the broch from the coastal path running from Letterfearn to Glenn.  Peering through the bracken, the incredible triangular lintel is what draws the eye.

That's when the questions start in the mind.. how many brochs have triangular rather than rectangular lintels? (several but Clachtoll in Assynt is the one that I remember best) Were the triangular lintels purely structural ie were they planned to relieve and distribute the pressure over the entrance?  Did they have some spiritual significance?  Were they simply considered more beautiful than rectangular lintels?  Once it was discovered that they did or could serve a function, such as relieving the pressure over the entrance, did they become more desirable?  Of course in the end, it may have been down to availability of the right shaped stone.  If they served an architectural function, one might suppose brochs with triangular lintels were built later than those with rectangular lintels.  There does not seem to be sufficient accurate dating of brochs to check this out.

Stepped lintels  and doorway to "guard cell" on right- Photo by Steve T

Moving into the entrance, this broch has another interesting feature.  The entrance slopes upwards and the first few lintels over the entrance are stepped upwards too.  One of these lintels forms an unusual "ceiling" check for the door.  It would also be a good place for taller and unwary visitors  to bang their heads on the way out - rather like the, now internal, doorway in my own traditional croft cottage.

From the entrance a passageway (described by Mackie, on Canmore, as an elongated guard cell)  leads off from the broch entrance.









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From the inside of the broch, moving clockwise from the entrance. there are entrances to two furtehr cells (marked cell 2 and 3 on the plan in the previous post )

Corbelling in cell 2

The walls of cell2 display some interesting cave art -- but I was unable to convince anyone that they were prehistoric.

In cell 3, little of the roof remains but the passage leads onto a staircase which would have led up to an upper level.

The scarcement which would have supported the upper level is well preserved all around the interior although there is some question about a possible break above cells 2 and 3.

References:

https://sites.google.com/site/brochgroup/home/architecture-engineering-of-brochs
https://canmore.org.uk/site/11812/caisteal-grugaig

Illustrated map of our route:

Dun Telve 2

Dun Telve 2

The second scarcement is at around  9 m and it is suggested that this formed the basis of a support for the roof. You can see the upper scarcement from the canmore image of a model of the broch.  If this is to support a roof, then it could have been along the lines suggested by Ian Armit in his book “Towers in the North”

 

If the roof design were as Armit suggests, there doesn't seem to be much scope for there being someone up there with a beacon to signal to others in a time of strife.  If there were some kind of walkway up there, it is difficult to see how it was accessed - I doubt anyone could access the roof via the galleries as the inner edges of the walls are very jagged -, all the smooth stones are on the visible faces.  additionally, and the higher you look ,  the narrower the space - but I imagine they were all pretty slim in those days.

I suppose it is possible that access was via ladders on the inside - but then there had to be some kind of hatch or opening to get outside - certainly nothing like this visible now.

Four galleries are clearly visible within the thickness of the wall and the remains of a fifth can be seen.

Ian Armit has an interesting idea about the purpose of the galleries:

 

Dun Telve has an imposing double entrance - was this for show or for defence? 

The "guardcell" on the left of the inner entrance is quite long and the stones are rather pretty - from the outer edges of the wall - the stones would be simply the usual grey stones, but on the walls facing inwards of the guards cell, the stones are rather decorative - this must have been intentional but what was the intention?

Attractive stones in the guard cell

Around the outside of both Telve and Troddan were several small blocks of stone carved with the letters VR.  What did they mean?  I know the answer now so you'll have to read on to find out.