Experimental Workshop: furnishing a broch
Get Involved! Experimental Archaeology Workshops, 1st to 5th July 2019 Next week we will be carrying out experiments into how the interior of the Clachtoll broch may have been floored. We will be making wicker panels of hazel and willow, similar to those likely to have formed the upper floors and internal galleries of the […]
Sparks flew in Assynt!
Assynt’s community sculpture to honour the Clachtoll broch project is well on the way to completion after a dramatic event at Glencanisp on Friday night. After dark, a furnace was set up in the pole barn by artist in residence Julia Cowie, who, with her assistant Uist, demonstrated Iron Age metal production with sparks flying! […]
SPARKS WILL FLY ON SATURDAY!
PUBLIC EVENT Traditional Metal Working and an Iron Age Story 2.30pm, Saturday 6 October 2018 at Clachtoll Broch or Stoer Village Hall if wet Author Mandy Haggith will talk and read from her novel, The Walrus Mutterer. Julia Cowie, artist in residence, will run a traditional copper smelt and demonstrate traditional bronze casting techniques. There […]
A Spell of Casting at Clachtoll
The broch has an artist in residence over the next few months, the amazing artist in metal, Julia Cowie. She’s not actually going to be living in the broch, which is a bit draughty these days! But she will be in Assynt to create some new work and inspire local people. Her activities will help […]
The dig is off to a blazing start
One of Assynt’s modern day assets is a wealth of talented potters, not least because of Highland Stoneware, based in Lochinver. Two people who work some of the time for them, and also run their own ceramics businesses, are Fergus Stewart and Marc Campbell. Fergus is an internationally-renowned potter and kiln builder, with decades of […]
All welcome to join in some experimental archaeology at Clachtoll
THERE ARE LOTS OF EVENTS TO JOIN IN WITH FROM 2nd – 14th JULY: ALL EVENTS ARE FREE EXCAVATION at the Broch Monday 2 July 2-5pm & then 9am – 5pm daily (not Sunday) until Saturday 14 July Volunteers welcome – no experience required CLACHTOLL BROCH ACTIVITIES AND DISPLAYS: Monday 2 July Afternoon In […]
Free Broch Pottery Workshops, 25th & 27th June
We founds lots of sherds of Iron Age pottery during our excavations at the broch last year, and now we’re going to try to make our own! Join us on Monday 25th or Wednesday 27th of June between 3.30pm and 6pm, meeting at Clachtoll Beach Car Park. Local craftspeople Fergus Stewart and Marc Campbell will […]
2018 Season Project Launch & Excavation Dates
We’re delighted to be getting back to Clachtoll Broch soon for further excavations and consolidation work. Excavation dates: Monday 2nd July, 2pm-5pm Tuesday 3rd-Saturday 7th July and Monday 9th-Saturday 14th July, 9am-5pm As always, volunteers are invited to participate in work at the broch. No experience is required and we will provide all tools and […]
The Beginnings of the Broch
In the summer of 2017, Historic Assynt and AOC Archaeology Group undertook a major programme of structural conservation and archaeological excavations at Clachtoll broch, Assynt. In a series of posts over the coming weeks, we’ll share with you the preliminary results of the excavations. Conservation works were concentrated on the south wall, an area previously […]
Prehistoric Architecture: experimental corbelling workshops
How do corbelled cells stand up? Corbelling is a simple but ingenious technique used in the contruction of chambers and cells, found in prehistoric architecture from the Neolithic onwards. Brochs contain corbelled cells as part of their hollow-walled construction. We will be building our own corbelled cell next week at Clachtoll, to demonstrate the technique. […]