Alternative Names Clickhimin; Loch Of Clickimin
Site type BROCH, FORT, SETTLEMENT
Canmore ID 1049
Site Number HU44SE 2.00
NGR HU 46433 40815
Council SHETLAND ISLANDS
Parish LERWICK
Former Region SHETLAND ISLANDS AREA
Former District SHETLAND
Former County SHETLAND

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Archaeological Notes

HU44SE 2 46433 40815

(HU 4643 4082) Brough (NR)
O.S.6"map, Shetland, 2nd ed.,(1902).

The broch of Clickhimin, one of the best preserved broch sites in Shetland, was excavated between 1953 and 1957 by Hamilton, who recovered a history which shed new light on the Iron Age colonization of the area.
The earliest occupation of the site was a small Late Bronze Age farmstead of the 7th or 6th centuries BC which was superseded by a larger circular farmhouse built by Iron Age immigrants about the 5th century BC. In the 4th, or early 3rd century BC larger and well-organised bands of Celtic settlers arrived, capable of erecting a stone-walled fort consisting of a block-house and ringwork, which was in turn superseded by a broch about the 1st century AD. In the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD the need for such defences passed away and the subsequent history of the site centres round a large wheelhouse built within the reduced tower and with minor outhouses, storage pits and cattle stalls dug in the debris inside the older defences. 310: Two fragments of Roman glass were found, one 1st to early 2nd century AD and the other 2nd to mid-3rd century. Both came from wheelhouse deposits.
J R C Hamilton 1968

Resurveyed at 1/2500 by OS(RD) 8th September 1964.

Clickhimin Broch is situated on the south shore of the Loch of Clickhimin, three-quarters of a mile south-west of Lerwick on the Lerwick-Sumburgh road. Mousa Broch is situated on the west shore of the island of Mousa, opposite Sandwick, 15 miles south of Lerwick on the Lerwick-Sumburgh road. Access is by motor boat hired from Leebatten, Sandwick. These two monuments are open at all reasonable times on application to the Caretaker. The device on the outside of the cover is a stylised picture of a broch.

Bone dice found.
D V Clarke 1970; E J Mackie 1971.

Bronze Spiral finger-ring.
E J Mackie 1971.

A watching brief was carried out in advance of cables being laid for the installation of floodlights at Clickimin Broch. The trenches were dug by HBM workmen. The trenches averaged 0.2m wide and rarely exceeded 0.15m in depth. The nature of the disturbed deposits was recorded. Copies of the report have been deposited with RCAHMS, HBM, and the Shetland Archives.
V Turner 1990.

Armit, I (1998i) Scotland's hidden history, Stroud, Gloucestershire
Page(s): 100-1 Held at RCAHMS E.2.1.ARM

Armit, I (2003) Towers in the North: the Brochs of Scotland, London
Page(s): 14, 26, 28-30, 63, 70, 113, 133-4, 152 (pl. 1, 6) Held at RCAHMS E.9.1.ARM

Brundle, Home Lorimer and Ritchie, A, D and A (2003) 'Buckquoy revisited', in Downes, J and Ritchie, A Sea Change: Orkney and Northern Europe in the later Iron Age AD 300-800 Balgavies, Angus
Page(s): 96