Rock n Roll! Building a Broch...

Last Thursday I was lucky enough to be able to take a trip an hour and a half up the road to Caithness to drop in on an exciting experimental archaeology project.

Members of the Caithness Archaeological Trust (CAT), experts from AOC Archaeology, the Archie Sinclair Fossil Centre, and volunteers from the community and further afield are working together to build a section of replica Iron Age broch wall to learn more about the building process, and then force a collapse to to find out more about the way in which brochs collapse.

Already a over week into the build, I arrived on site to find the whole floor plan of the broch had been marked out on the ground in paint and a rough pattern of stones. This immediately forced a gasp of breath from me, acknowledgement of the sheer size of such a building project Brochs as ruins seem impressive, but as a pile of collapsed stone, or even a fairly well preserved example, such as Dun Telve in Glenelg or Dun Carloway on Lewis, I have never got that feeling of the 'bigger picture' as I did seeing those markings on the ground. This, it seems to me, is the best way to get a feel for scale and complexity.

Work on the main section being built, around the doorway, was well under way with a few courses of stone already laid. A small digger had just been brought on site as an acknowledgement of the enormity of the task, to be completed in just a few weeks.

The process of building roughly took the form of laying large slabs of Caithness flagstone on at the wall edges, and then filling in the central area of each layer with progressively smaller stones in a kind of jigsaw fashion, then throwing chippings and small stones into the gaps to fill in any voids. This, I was told, was the key to the stregnth of the structure.

I was really excited to find out that a guard chamber (as these small 'rooms' are known) was to be included into the wall near the door, and I will be forever thankful to John Barber of AOC for patiently explaining to me the process of measuring and constructing the corbelled roof of the cell. I know with absolute certainly that I'll be using this information in art projects in time to come.

Around five hours of lugging rock and climbing up and down walls was absolutely exhausting, but made all the more bearable by the lovely folk on site - and the wonderful scones and cake that has been laid on for our breaks!

It's a shame I didn't think to get someone to take a photo of me, covered in rock dust from head to toe, as I'm sure it made a funny sight!

John Barber told me he had invited artists and other creatives on site in order to see what they made of the project, not just the build but the atmosphere and teamwork on site. I must admit to coming away wondering exactly what I was going to pull from the experience, but I already have some sketches down for an abstract painting that's quite firm in my mind and ready to paint... I've just pulled a suitable canvas from the back of the studio and I'm hoping I can start work today or tomorrow, before heading back to the project this coming Friday (I'm really interested to see how that corbelled chamber has come on).

I will of course report back here...

To find out more about the project and keep up to date with progress, visit the website - http://www.aocarchaeology.com/stoneworks/