Old Scatness Broch

A Pict's Home is His Wheelhouse: Recreated Wheelhouse (& Pict!)

Old Scatness Broch lies right next to the main A970 as it curves around the west end of one of the runways at Sumburgh Airport. For a decade archeologists of the Shetland Amenity Trust and Bradford University have worked each summer to uncover secrets that have been concealed by the landscape for well over 1000 years.

Recreated Wheelhouse Recreated Pict and Norse Artefacts Consolidated Area of the Site Betty Muat's Bod

And each summer Old Scatness Broch is open to visitors, who get guided tours of the site and of the nearby reconstructions of some of what has been found here.

Until the mid 1990s this corner of Shetland had been of interest primarily as the home of Betty Mouat, who in 1886 set out on her first visit for 14 years to Lerwick to sell knitted shawls she and her neighbours had made. Roads in 1886 were not what they are today, so Betty travelled on a 50 foot sailing boat, the Columbine.

Reception and Information

Reception Interior

Wheelhouse Hearth

Unfortunately the skipper fell overboard en route, and the crew, who jumped in to save him, then lost contact with the boat. For eight days Betty Mouat lived on some ships biscuits and a bottle of milk, before the boat ran aground on the coast of Norway. Betty returned home a minor celebrity and was even sent a letter by Queen Victoria. Today her home is Betty Mouat's Böd,a camping böd virtually on the site of the Scatness excavations.

In 1995 work got under way to investigate some humps and bumps next to the böd. What has emerged has kept archaeologists busy ever since. At the core of the site is an Iron Age broch dating back to perhaps 100BC to AD100. Close by is an Iron Age aisled roundhouse, plus Pictish wheelhouses which date to between the years AD600 and AD900. Further evidence suggests that parts of the site were used by the Norse and in Medieval times.

The eventual aim is to to consolidate the site to serve as a permanent attraction for visitors, but this is likely to be some years off. In the meantime it remains work-in-progress, albeit with expert guidance on hand. Our advice would be to visit the superb site at Jarlshof, only a mile or so away from Scatness, first.

The timeline at Jarlshof is even more complex than it is at Scatness, but it does give you a great idea of what to look out for at Scatness. Actually, one of the main things that Jarlshof has that Scatness doesn't is a Norse settlement, but there's every chance one will be found here in due course.

Adding greatly to the experience at Scatness are the recreations of wheelhouses, one without a roof, the other "fully functioning". Visit this a when member of the historical reenactment team is on hand, when there's a fire in the hearth, and perhaps when the pottery kiln is warming up and it can seem quite... well, "homely" really isn't how it seems to 21st Century eyes, but you do at last get a sense of how real people lived in a house like this...

Overview of the Site