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Ancient monument

The Broch of Mousa

Mousa, Shetland

The tallest Iron Age tower still standing, home to storm petrels.

The Broch of Mousa is a drystone tower 13. 3 metres tall, built with no mortar about 300 BC.

Read the full story, see it on the map, get directions and find what else is nearby in the free Hidden Britain Atlas map.

When
c. 300 BC
Where
60.0000, -1.1830
Group
Circles & monuments

Visiting

Boat trips from Sandwick in summer, including night trips.

Cover of The Ledger of Lost Britain by Cale Mills
From the book

The Ledger of Lost Britain

In the Orkneyinga Saga, Earl Harald Maddadsson besieged it in 1153, after his mother was abducted and held inside. Today it is a home for storm petrels.

The Romans arrived in AD 43. For most people that is where the history of Britain begins. But by the time the legions landed, people had already been living on these islands for thousands of years. They had hunted, farmed, mined flint, dragged stones across the country, raised a hill by hand, and buried their dead in great tombs. They left no written words. What they left was the ground itself. Every place in this book can be visited, or has been dug up, or is in a museum.

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