Our walk from the pier at Lerwick brought us to the first of a few places we wanted to visit on our day in Shetland and that was the Broch of Clickimin. We’re fond of historical sites as you’ll know if you’ve read any of the other travel write-ups on this site, although the chances of that are slim which is why I’ve mentioned it again.
This post will mostly just be photographs of the Broch of Clickimin since our experience – and that of most people visiting it – can be broadly summarised as we walked to it, we walked around it, and we walked inside it.
To start with, though, “What is a broch?” might be what you’re wondering because I know I was. There’s actually no consensus on this. Early archaeological thoughts had them as defensive locations but later ones questioned the lack-of-strategic positioning; other thoughts were that they were status symbols for wealthy or important people but the high number of them in this part of the world for the time period brought that into question; there are those who think they were centralised farmsteads; nobody really knows, in other words.
The site of the Broch of Clickimin is also contentious with early declarations of a late Bronze Age settlement superseded by an Iron Age farmhouse then later defensive additions now being questioned following more modern archaeological interpretations. Sometimes science disappoints you.
Anyway, enough of the background to the place; on with the photos. You can see from them that the fog was still with us, still smothering a lot of the surroundings and dropping that temperature right down. In this first picture you can see the walk from the main road entrance to the ruins.
A narrow, low entry tunnel granted access to the interior of the Broch of Clickimin although this did involve squatting, checking to make sure nobody else was coming your way, then shuffling through. If you’ve got poor mobility then this is likely to be something you won’t be able to do although a sled, some rope, and friends to drag you along is obviously an option to consider. Accessibility wasn’t a big concern during the Iron Age for some reason.
We weren’t at the Broch of Clickimin long because it’s not a large site but it was very interesting and well worth looking around if you can. In the next post in this British Isles cruise travelogue series we’ll conclude our time ashore with more of a walk around Lerwick including visits to the museum, fort, and a couple of pubs.