Dr Euan Mackie, Honorary Research Fellow of the Hunterian Museum at the University of Glasgow and director of the excavation of Dùn Mòr in Vaul, talks to Dr John Holliday in April 2000 about the implications of the dig for Scottish archaeology and for himself personally.
Initially Dr Mackie requested permission from Argyll Estates to excavate a machair site at Balevullin where A. Henderson Bishop had found Iron Age pottery and other artefacts in 1912. This was refused because the area was used for grazing cattle.
An alternative site of the broch at Vaul was acceptable. Dr Mackie directed the excavations there over three seasons in the early 1960s which produced a wealth of material from the late 6th or 5th century B.C. to the 2nd or 3rd century A.D. The finds are stored in the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow.
Former chemistry teacher Harry Kelly of Glasgow was recorded in April 2000 talking to Dr John Holliday about the time he spent in the early 1960s as a volunteer at the excavation of the Iron Age broch at Vaul.
When his tent was washed out by rain soon after his arrival, Harry was offered lodgings by Catriona MacKinnon of Rhum View in Vaul. Catriona was a mine of information about life on Tiree in the 1930s.
Much to Harry’s surprise, she had made her own pottery from local clay and dyed cloth with lichens. In this clip, Harry talks about the method she used to make pots.
Excavated by Dr Euan MacKie in the 1960s, the broch measures 9.2 metres in internal diameter with dry-stone walls up to 4.5 metres thick and was once probably 8 metres high. Built around the middle of the 1st century AD, the absence of a permanent central hearth suggests it was used originally as a temporary refuge.
The upper storeys of the broch were subsequently dismantled and a round-house, possibly an aisled wheel-house, may have been constructed in the interior. It housed a flourishing community engaged in mixed farming, iron-working and bronze-casting.
Radiocarbon dating of organic material indicates that the site was inhabited from the late 6th or 5th century BC to the 2nd or 3rd century AD, though perhaps not continuously.
Colour photograph of the interior of the Vaul broch in 2001.
The interior of the broch at Vaul photographed by Catriona Hunter in February 2001. Excavated by Dr Euan MacKie in the 1960s, the broch measures 9.2 m in internal diameter with dry-stone walls up to 4.5 m thick and once probably 8 m high. Built around the middle of the 1st century AD, the absence of a permanent central hearth suggests it was used originally as a temporary refuge. The upper storeys of the broch were subsequently dismantled and a round-house, possibly an aisled wheel-house, constructed in the interior. It housed a flourishing community engaged in mixed farming, iron-working and bronze-casting. Radiocarbon dating of organic material indicates that the site was inhabited from the late 6th or 5th century BC to the 2nd or 3rd century AD, though perhaps not continuously.
Newsletter of the Tiree Heritage Society `Friends of the Tiree Chapels`, No. 7, 17/8/2004.
News about the Gaelic version of the Pilgrimage Route Guidebook, the information boards for the chapels, broch, ringing stone and Soroby graveyard, the repairs to the bridges at the Kirkapol chapel site and Tobair Eachainn, funding and fund-raising.
Audio cassette recording of Meena Knapman of Kenovay talking to Dr John Holliday in September 1998.
Meena Knapman of Kenovay talks to Dr John Holliday in September 1998 about her early holidays on Tiree in the late 1920s and 1930s staying at Heanish then Vaul, the people in Vaul, the journey to Tiree from Glasgow and transport on Tiree, the funeral of John Brown from the Scarinish Hotel, Commander Dewar of Vaul, things to do on holiday in Tiree, shops and dances, Malcolm MacLean of Salum, the airport before WWII, memories of people and places, lighthouses seen from Tiree and Captain John MacKinnon of Vaul.
