DID THE BROCH HAVE A KEY?

Studies on brochs frequently liken the structure to a castle: see - https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2025/02/on-fanciful-cliche-broch-visions.html and https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-castle-broch.html. One might agree that, like a castle, the broch is a defensive structure, but it has been argued that brochs were not habitations in spite of studies clearly stating that brochs were, if not permanent places for habitation, at least retreats for the safety of villagers, which equates to much the same proposition in a case of a siege: see – https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2025/02/on-fanciful-cliche-broch-visions.html. So it is that the broch is envisaged as something like a castle: a safe habitation from which an attack can be made to defend the structure, those in it, and its contents; but was this so?

Much detail on the entry to brochs has been written about and recorded as photographs and sketches. There are reveals in the entry passage, steps in the stone walls, and sometimes in the matching lintels too, along with other recesses to accommodate what has been interpreted as being a beam that could be pulled across the opening for extra security for the door.# The draw bar appears to be, and is assumed to be, a common feature of all brochs. Holes that suggest such a device can still be seen in some ruins. The implication of this detail seems to be that brochs had a solid timber door opening inwards, perhaps in a timber frame, that could be reinforced against attack by an inner beam, a draw bar, for added strength; a deterrent to prohibit easy opening.

Door with draw bar.

Doors from Ian Tait's Shetland Vernacular Buildings 1600-1900.

This interpretation suggests that, with its implicit understanding, there is someone inside the broch protected by a solid door braced by a sliding beam envisaged as fitting into the rock recesses each side of the opening. It could be that the whole village might have retreated into the safety of the broch, as some researchers suggest. One wonders: would anyone other than the aggressors be outside? Could there be anyone from the surrounding settlement wanting to get into the safety of the broch interior once the draw bar had been put in place? How might such a person get in if the beam had been drawn? A secret knock? A peep hole? Was there a password? Could this be used as a hoax? The propositions are both intriguing and puzzling. How many people might be inside? How is entry and egress managed? Was there a gatekeeper? Some brochs have adjacent voids to the sides and sometimes overhead, that could suggest that there was someone like a gatekeeper or guard who was located near the entry.

This thinking about the functioning of the broch can make some sense if one sees the broch as a habitation. Because of the draw bar theory, with the concept that the broch was not a habitation, thought has to be given to the questions: Who shuts the door? Who opens the door? Someone has to be inside to secure the door for safety, and to remove the beam, the draw bar, (we are assuming there was one), to open the door. Who might this be? Should there be more than one person, because, if an attack was successful, (who knows how?), the lone broch keeper could be killed, thus locking everyone out. So were there a few broch keepers? Did these few live in the broch permanently? One wonders: might there have been a key to the door? If so, could it be that no one was required to be inside; that the broch was indeed a workplace, store, and ‘chapel,' not a habitation?

Lock details from Ian Tait's Shetland Vernacular Buildings 1600-1900.

A key might sound far-fetched, but one only has to look at the ingenuity of the Shetland craftsman who devised a wooden lock and key for the vernacular cottage – see https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2013/12/shetland-vernacular-buildings.html. This was the iron age; who knows what devices could have been fabricated? Why might broch builders not have been as skilful as the Shetland crofters and made a lock and key system for the broch? Could this device have manipulated the inner beam – could it have been a bolt? - securing the workplace, stores, and 'chapel' space – see: https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-broch-its-intramural-stair.html - with the broch being defended aggressively from the exterior? Prehistoric man was not as 'primitive' as we might like to think: see - https://news.artnet.com/art-world/the-hunt-altamira-cave-paintings-drama-2674323.

 

Doors from Ian Tait's Shetland Vernacular Buildings 1600-1900.

One has to remember that brochs were located in positions that appear to limit the possibilities of attack, a situation that would make the external defence a more manageable proposition, with all forces able to be concentrated on the one vulnerable approach, while the broch remained closed, locked, as secure as it could be: see – https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2025/02/apophenia-broch-research.html.

Some studies suggest or imply that the broch was defended from its interior, and even speak of fighters in the intramural stair, noting that, like the castle, the stair rises clockwise to inhibit the swing of the right-handed swordsman. Apart from the entry, and assuming that its security is not breached, this defence could only be from the top of the walls, as the only opening in the external broch wall that we know of is the entry. One wonders at the effectiveness of this 'from above' strategy.  How might this attack be managed? How was it supplied? With what? The uncertainty that many researchers have with the detailing of the upper portions of the broch only further muddles this notion. What really happened at the top of the broch? – see: https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-broch-its-intramural-stair.html. Broch research has a history of developing particular ideas on propositions that have already been refuted; that are doubted or are uncertain, or have been rationally challenged, requiring some further explanation that is generally ignored in favour of the elaboration of the presented, preferred concepts.

The well-protected Broch of Gurness, Mainland, Orkney.

If brochs have their 'natural' defences in their siting, why would this upper perimeter defence be needed? The strategy, (the ‘from the top defence’), seems at odds with this idea of the siting, leaving the broch more easily accessible and open to siege by a surrounding force. How might one organise a defence from above? If the defence happened to be a bit of both - some in and some out - how did these groups communicate to co-ordinate any strategy? Sign language? How was access/egress managed? There are many questions that can be asked that make the external defence a reasonably realistic proposition to ponder – perhaps describing a more successful strategy - leaving the broch to be seen as something like an essential, core community facility - a workplace, store, and 'chapel' - locked, and needing to be protected and defended from the outside, rather than being a community refuge that might be considered impregnable, but readily susceptible to a siege - (food, water, and waste need to be considered here as well as interior spatial arrangements) - with attacking defensive opportunities from above seemingly being very limited. Here it is critical for one to know more about the detailing of the top of the broch to have any certainty about any of this latter concept if it is to be supported.

The well-protected Clickimin Broch, Mainland, Shetland.

One notes that the step in the stonework in plan goes from narrow to wide from the outside in. Assuming that the door frame fitted into the step, which appears to be likely, one wonders if a better defence might have been to have the frame in a step the other way around. Why was the rebate not reversed so as to offer the step in the stone to act somewhat as a shelf, that could in theory hold and resist the onslaught from outside? Likewise, why did the door not open out to provide more resistance to a frontal attack? It would seem, at face value, that both the rebate and the door could be better this way around, operating in the same way a plug performs. There is more that we need to know here: the broch builders were not fools.

One has to wonder if the door could have fitted the opening without a frame?  With the actual detailing we see in the broch ruins today, might such a panel make it more difficult to attack with all edges and fixings being concealed by the reveal? Such an installation would have presented a formidable resistance, especially with the doors opening inwards, and when 'locked' by a sliding beam.

One is only assuming that the closure might have been timber. Could it have been like Maeshowe, a rocking stone closure? One has to remember that if the timber door, (a rock has fewer complications), was mounted the other way and opened out, all locks, hinges, and edges would be accessible for attack and destruction. The actual arrangement of the inward opening door braced by the beam, would be difficult to move or lever in once locked into position. This thought raises the further question: what form did the hinge take?

Maeshowe Blocking Stone is placed into position by a rocking motion.

With this ‘no frame’ defensive closure, the door would require a battering ram to fail, that, with the confined space of a narrow and low entry, would be extremely difficult to adequately manoeuvre to gain any momentum with the mass. The reversed door would leave itself fully exposed at all edges for levers and hacking, frame or no frame, even if it made a better ‘plug’ for the entry.

The drawings sometimes show two reveals suggesting two 'doors,' one in front of the other. Might one be a rock and the other a massive timber door, c.f. solid castle door complete with iron fixtures and fittings of which we know nothing as iron rusts away to dust?

So, did the broch have a key? One can easily envisage the possibility that brochs had keys. It is not a silly question as the implications reverberate across a number of other interpretations and hypotheses that shape our understanding of brochs. The idea of a key seems to fit more coherently with a set of strategies and concepts than otherwise. It is a proposition that does away with intellectual complications of habitation and internal, or perhaps a shared inside/outside defence. The 'key' allows entry to an 'empty' broch, to the special spaces containing the essential items being protected, as well as facilitating exit whenever needed.

A broch makes much more sense when seen as a work, store, sacred place, the vital heart and support of a community; a place located so as to be defended from outside, rather than a habitation defended from the inside. Researchers trying to give the broch a lookout/defensive capability, need to do and say a lot more about infrastructure and habitation – numbers, spatial arrangements, functions, and fits - when making these assumptions. Brochs just cannot be assumed to have been safe retreats or habitations even if we might prefer to think about matters in this ‘castle’ way. Such a theory also has to explain more about sieges - food, water, waste, tools, stores, sacred place, and shrewd attacks on dim and misty days when visibility is cut down to a few feet.

Mousa from the Mainland.

The broch is the tiny speck on the far right of the island.

Just as with ‘known necessities’ like structural performance and gravity, the Shetland weather and scale cannot be ignored in any proposal for broch functions. The functioning of the broch seems just too easy to be cajoled by the tourist trip to Mousa when folk climb to the top and admire the astonishing view, and lock into this experience as the core purpose of brochs – defensive, castle-like lookouts communicating with each other - when it is not difficult to refute this hypothetical option that lingers on in spite of actual circumstances. Has any researcher, even on a fine, sunny day, ever stood on the Mainland and looked across to Mousa and wondered what and how one might communicate even at this short distance? Try it on a rainy misty day too, and see what the answer is likely to be. Might this be the time to attack? We should never assume broch dwellers were dumb fools, backwards idiots deprived of our ‘brilliance’ and our twenty-first century ‘progressive’ knowledge and technology. Might things be better thought about in reverse, with ourselves being the 'lesser' folk? Could we build a broch today without our technology? Ask the Caithness group. The point is that an understanding of brochs has to facilitate this proposition, and accommodate the realities it in the explanation. Concepts cannot be left floundering in a sea of uncomfortable and irrational unknowns and uncertainties.

Mousa Broch.

The entry to Mousa broch faces the water's edge, away from any easy attack.

We have to remember to break away from our cliches and preferred concepts when thinking about brochs, not only with lifestyles and techniques, but also with simple matters, basic questions like: what is a key; what is a broch key? We need to consider wholeness and coherence in theories and to constantly test them.

Mmmm; everything is connected . . . one is left wondering: Who looked after the key? Where was it kept? Was there a broch caretaker? Were there numerous broch caretakers? . . . We are back to the beginning, spinning into circles of thought that need more clarification in order to structure the rigour of an idea. We need theories that are cohesive; inclusive; that integrate understandings and make wholes, rather than repeatedly grasp at pieces and develop these as though nothing else matters. It might sound trite, but we cannot ignore the functioning of any draw bar, in the same manner in which we cannot ignore the operation of the stairs. Just as stairs lead somewhere for a purpose, draw bars need to be moved when doors are to be secured, meaning that someone, at least one, remains inside, or, and the logic develops the question: was there a key to facilitate access and egress?

We have a preconception today with locks and keys being so commonplace and intricate. We carry visions of what a key is, and what a lock looks like, and assume such astonishing technology was unavailable to the broch builders; but there are many variations to locks and keys.

The mechanism of a ship's door.

There is another thought that needs noting: while we might assume that the door had one beam that acted as a draw bar, why could this not have been a lock with a bolt, perhaps one on each side of the opening? Look at the way ships’ doors are secured. Whether the broch had a key or not, is not a question that can remain isolated, singular. It has implications on a range of other theories about brocks. Perhaps it is the key ‘broch’ question, (no pun intended), that, if successfully answered, will resolve many matters once and for all, including the idea that a broch is like a castle. A lot rests on the development of the hypothesis that the broch entrance opening and its associated detailing did indeed operate only with a draw bar.

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For clarity, the text will refer to the closure of the broch opening as ‘door’ while being aware that this might have been one panel or a pair of leaves, or take some other form, perhaps a slab of stone as in Maeshowe in the Orkney Islands.