Dun Telve facts for kids
Dun Telve
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 Location in Highland
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| Alternative name | Dùn Teilbh |
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| Location | Scottish Highlands |
| Coordinates | 57°11′41″N 5°35′41″W / 57.194613°N 5.594653°W |
| Type | Broch |
| History | |
| Periods | Iron Age |
| Site notes | |
| Ownership | Historic Scotland |
| Public access | Yes |
Dun Telve (which means Dùn Teilbh in Scottish Gaelic) is an amazing ancient stone tower. It comes from the Iron Age, a time long ago when people started using iron tools. This special building is called a broch.
You can find Dun Telve in the Scottish Highlands, about 4 kilometers southeast of a village called Glenelg. It's one of the best-preserved brochs in all of Scotland!
Where is Dun Telve?
Dun Telve stands on the north side of a small river called Abhainn a’Ghlaine Bhig. It's in a beautiful valley known as Gleann Beag. The broch is right next to a small road that goes south from Glenelg.
Did you know there are other brochs nearby? Another broch, Dun Troddan, is just 470 meters to the east. And a "semi-broch" called Dun Grugaig is about 2.5 kilometers further east. It's like a whole ancient neighborhood of towers!
A Look Back in Time: Dun Telve's History
People think that some stones from Dun Telve might have been taken in 1722. These stones were probably used to help build Bernera Barracks in Glenelg.
By the late 1700s, Dun Telve was already a popular spot for tourists. It was first drawn and sketched around that time. Later, between 1871 and 1873, a man named Henry Dryden carefully measured and surveyed the building.
The broch became a protected site between 1882 and 1901. You can still see the markers that show the protected area today. Around 1914, some work was done to help preserve the broch. This included clearing out the inside and strengthening parts of the walls.
Even though it's very old, Dun Telve has never been fully dug up by archaeologists. This means there might still be many secrets hidden beneath the ground! Today, Historic Environment Scotland looks after this incredible ancient monument.
What Does Dun Telve Look Like?
Dun Telve is a round stone tower built without any mortar, just carefully stacked stones. It measures about 18.3 meters across. The highest part of the wall still stands about 10.2 meters tall on the west and northwest sides.
The outside walls are very thick, about 4.3 meters at the bottom. They get a bit thinner towards the top, measuring about 1.2 meters thick.
The main entrance is on the west side. It has been changed a bit over time, probably in the mid-1800s. Just inside the entrance, on the south side, there's a small room. This is sometimes called a "guard cell." It might have been used by a guard or for storage.
Inside the broch, on the north side, there's a doorway. This leads to another small room and then to a space inside the wall itself. This space gets narrower as it goes up.
To get to the upper parts of the tower, there's a winding stone staircase built into the wall. Openings along the stairs once led to upper floors. There are two stone ledges, called scarcements, inside the tower. These suggest that there were once two upper floors, with the top one being about 9 meters above the ground! Imagine living up there!
Outside the main tower, on the west and northwest sides, you can also see the remains of other buildings. At least one of these was a rectangular building.
