Mature Flâneur
Paradise in Scotland: A Wee Broch by a Big Loch
Scotland’s Iron-Age houses, updated for the 21st Century
Teresa’s Scottish dreamhouse — the place where my beloved spouse most fantasized us staying during a previous trip to the Highlands— was in one of the Brochs of Coigach. Now, for anyone who knows what a broch is, that sounds utterly doo-lally. A broch is an Iron Age stone house. And doo-lally means insane.
Back in the Iron Age, some 2,600–2000 years ago, people in northwestern Scotland lived in these large, round houses made of fitted dry stone. Some brochs were as big as 13 metres/36 feet tall, with walls 5m./15ft. thick, heated by a central fire. There are 541 broch sites in all, according to Wikipedia. But luckily a handful remain partially intact — a real tribute to the skills of the builders.
At first, historians assumed these were early fortresses (broch literally means a fort). But, as excavations in the 1980s revealed no…
