Dun Telve

The brochs date from the Iron Age, approximately 2000 years ago. It is thought that the broch was robbed for stone in 1722 (probably for the building of Bernera Barracks in Glenelg). Dun Telve was popular with tourists by the late 18th century, and was first sketched in the late 18th century. It was surveyed in detail in 1871–1873 by Henry Dryden. The building was brought into state care between 1882 and 1901 and the boundary markers that define the area of guardianship are still visible. Around 1914 a programme of works was undertaken by the Office of Works which included "clearing out" the interior, inserting concrete into the upper intramural space and pointing the internal wall-face.…

The broch consists of a drystone tower which measures 18.3 m in diameter, and currently stands to a maximum height of 10.2 m to the west and northwest. A doorway on the north side of the interior of the broch provides access first to an internal cell and then to the intramural space that narrows as it rises through to the top of the surviving wall. Access up the tower is by a winding stone stair, and openings at intervals once gave access to the upper floors. The presence of two horizontal stone ledges, or scarcements, up the height of the surviving section suggests that there were two upper floors. The top floor would have been around 9 m above ground level. Structures appended to the west…