Torwoodlee Broch

About Torwoodlee Broch

Discoveries at native Iron Age sites can reveal glimpses of the locals’ relationship with the Romans. Torwoodlee Broch, atop a hill overlooking Galashiels, is one remarkable example.

Torwoodlee is a layered, multi-period site. The broch was built within an earlier Iron Age fortification, which itself was superimposed on a Bronze Age hillfort. Adding to its complexity is its proximity to the Catrail, an enigmatic miles-long earthwork which may have served as a tribal territorial boundary.

The Romans likely destroyed the fortification in the 1st or 2nd century AD, perhaps unwilling to tolerate a native fort so near to their own operations. The broch was then built when the Romans temporarily withdrew and the local people felt secure enough to settle back in – now bolstered by a broch’s stout walls.

Torwoodlee Broch contained the most Roman pottery and glass of any native site in the area, perhaps meaning that its inhabitants traded with the Romans or that looted materials from Trimontium. It also yielded a startling discovery – a cist burial within the broch’s rubble-filed outer ditch containing a female skull and left and right humeri. Why was this person interred here in such unusual circumstances? We may never know for sure.

Masonry from Torwoodlee Broch was carted off in huge quantities to build local field dykes. What you see today are the earth-covered stone foundations, the inner wheel shape of the broch still clearly visible with its entrance pointing straight towards the Eildon Hills to the east.

NB: Postcode gives approximate location only. For accuracy use what3words: fuses.thud.palace or National Grid Reference: NT 4655 3847