Clickimin Broch

Clickimin Broch stands on a walled promontory in the Loch of Clickimin on the south-west edge of Lerwick, an outstanding example of the Iron Age tower found only in Scotland. The promontory was an island reached by a narrow causeway until the loch was lowered in 1874, and people lived here from at least 1000 BC to about AD 500: a late Bronze Age house and enclosure, an early Iron Age ring-fort wall, then the broch and the enigmatic blockhouse that rises in front of it, and finally a wheelhouse-type building inside the broch's shell. Who built the tower and why, for defence or for show, is still unknown. On the causeway look for the stone carved with a pair of footprints, perhaps used in the inauguration of kings. Reviewers walk out in about twenty minutes from Lerwick town centre, note that there is no parking or visitor centre at the broch, and find it most photogenic in morning or evening light.