Scotland.  Day 4, 2nd July.

Driving north from Brora, my next stop was Ousdale Broch.  It is just as well I had its location defined on my car GPS because it is some way off the road and I would not have been able to find it otherwise.

The entrance to Ousdale Broch

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The passageway in to Ousdale Broch

Typical of brochs, you needed to stoop and become vulnerable to enter.  There is also a guard cell off to the right in the passageway.  Some brochs had a stone that defenders could slide into place for a doorway.  I don’t know whether this was the case here.

The entrance to Ousdale Broch from inside

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The entrance to the internal stairs, too overgrown to photograph

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The entrance and the doorway to the stairs from inside the broch

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The entrance to Ousdale Broch from the back wall

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Ousdale Broch from the back wall

The broch is 1.5 metres high externally and 3 metres high internally while it had 8-foot thick walls (from other accounts; I didn’t measure this myself).   Of course the walls are likely to have been higher originally.

Ousdale Broch

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Ousdale Broch (middle distance against the far hill)

The broch is set into the landscape above Ousdale burn with a commanding view of visitors from the sea, yet probably hardly visible from there.