Dun Mor Vaul

Dun Mor Vaul stands on a rocky knoll on the northern coast of Tiree, about a kilometre northwest of the hamlet of Vaul. The broch is an Iron Age drystone tower with walls nearly five metres thick and an internal diameter of just over nine metres. Its entrance faces south-east, and inside there is a small guard cell beside the passage. The broch also had two outer lines of defence: one encircling the knoll’s summit and another shaped like a hornwork to block landward approaches. Excavations in the 19th century and again between 1962 and 1964 showed two earlier phases of occupation before the broch was built. The first was a wooden hut destroyed by fire in the 5th century BC. Later a larger settlement occupied the summit until the broch itself was constructed in the 1st century AD. By the 2nd century it had become a single family’s home, and upper storeys were removed to make space for a round house inside. Visitors find the broch’s well-preserved intramural cavity and the remains of a staircase on the north side. Finds from the site include Roman glass, samian-ware, bronze rings, querns, bone tools and weaving equipment. These artefacts are now in the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow. The surrounding knoll offers views across the coastline and the wider landscape of Tiree.