About the model
Mousa Broch, on a low rock promontory on the west shore of the island of Mousa, Shetland, is the best-preserved Iron Age broch: a drystone tower of local Old Red Sandstone flags, about 15 m across at the base and 12 m at the top, still standing 13.3 m high. The lower part of the wall is solid apart from three cells (beehive chambers), three recesses in the court wall and the stair entrance. Above that the wall is hollow: an inner and an outer wall tied together by floors of large slabs that make six galleries, one above another. A stair rises through the galleries to the wall-head. Four vertical sets of openings (voids) light the galleries from the court, and two scarcement ledges run round the court wall. Its date is given as about 300 BC (Wikipedia, HES on Sketchfab), the last century BC to first century AD (Hamilton 1970), or 100 BC to AD 150 (Thomas 2011). Later a wheelhouse-type inner wall with radial partitions, a bench, a tank and a hearth were built in the court. Norse sagas use it as a refuge in about AD 900 and in 1153. Changes: the court was cleared in 1861 (repairs then too). A higher doorway put in before 1851 was taken out in 1919, when the Office of Works cleared the court, surveyed the broch, pinned loose stones, bedded the top stones and lowered the entrance lintel to its original height. Part of the wall-head is reconstructed, and there was more stabilisation from 1967 into the 1980s. The 'now' view should have the 1919 entrance and the reconstructed wall-head; the 'as built' view has the original passage with its chamber above and no secondary court walling.