Jarlshof facts for kids
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Jarlshof, February 2007
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 Location in Shetland
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| Location | Mainland, Shetland, Scotland |
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| Coordinates | 59°52′10″N 1°17′28″W / 59.8693725°N 1.2910305°W |
| Type | Roundhouses, broch, wheelhouses, longhouse |
| History | |
| Periods | Bronze Age Iron Age, Pictish, Norse |
| Site notes | |
| Ownership | Historic Scotland |
Jarlshof (pronounced YARLZ-hof) is a very famous ancient site in Shetland, Scotland. It's located in Sumburgh, on the Shetland Mainland. Experts have called it "one of the most remarkable archaeological sites" in the British Isles.
This amazing place shows remains from many different time periods. You can see buildings and objects from 2500 BC all the way up to the 1600s AD.
People from the Bronze Age built small oval houses with thick stone walls here. They left behind cool items like a decorated bone object. Later, during the Iron Age, people built different kinds of structures. These included a broch (a tall, round tower) and a strong wall to protect the site.
The Picts, an ancient Scottish people, also lived here. They left behind interesting art, like a painted pebble and a special "symbol stone." After them came the Vikings. Their ruins at Jarlshof are the biggest Viking site you can see in Britain. They built a longhouse and left many tools. These finds help us understand what life was like in Shetland during the Viking Age.
The most noticeable buildings today are the walls of a fortified manor house from the Scottish period. This house inspired the name "Jarlshof," which means "Earl's Mansion." The name was first used in a book by Walter Scott in 1821.
Today, Historic Scotland looks after Jarlshof. It is open to visitors from April to September. In 2010, Jarlshof, along with Mousa and Old Scatness, was considered for the "tentative list" of World Heritage Sites. This means they might become a UNESCO World Heritage Site one day.
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Where is Jarlshof?
Jarlshof is located at the very southern tip of the Shetland Mainland. It's close to the villages of Sumburgh and Grutness. It's also near the south end of Sumburgh Airport.
The site looks out over a part of the sea called the West Voe of Sumburgh. There are also freshwater springs nearby and building materials on the beach. These things made it a great place for people to settle long ago. The southern Mainland is also good for farming in Shetland. Many other ancient settlements are found in this area. Jarlshof is only about a mile from Scatness, where another broch was found in 1975.
There is a small visitor center at Jarlshof. It has displays and a collection of the amazing objects found at the site.
The name Jarlshof means "Earl's Mansion." It was made up by the famous writer Walter Scott. He visited the site in 1814. He based the name on the Scottish period name for the main building, "the laird's house." It wasn't until more than a hundred years later that archaeologists found proof of Viking settlements here. However, there is no evidence that a Norse jarl (a Viking chief) ever actually lived there.
A Journey Through Time at Jarlshof
The remains at Jarlshof show thousands of years of people living there. It's like a mini-history book of Shetland. For a long time, most of the site was hidden. Then, a big storm in the late 1800s washed away part of the shore. This revealed the ancient buildings underneath.
Archaeologists started digging formally in 1925. They soon found items from the Bronze Age. Jarlshof was one of the first broch sites to be dug using modern scientific methods. This happened between 1949 and 1952. Even though earlier attempts had disturbed the site, this work showed many layers of building from different times.
Buildings found at Jarlshof include:
- A Bronze Age smithy (a place where metal was worked).
- An Iron Age broch and roundhouses.
- A group of Pictish wheelhouses.
- A Viking longhouse.
- A medieval farmhouse.
No new digs have happened since the early 1950s. Also, no radiocarbon dating has been done since then.
Early Life: Neolithic Period
The very first finds at Jarlshof are pieces of pottery from the Neolithic era. This was the New Stone Age. While the main settlement started later, there is evidence of people living nearby as early as 3200 BC.
Bronze Age Settlements
The Bronze Age in Scotland lasted from about 2000 BC to 800 BC. The oldest known buildings at Jarlshof are from this time. However, there's proof that people lived here even earlier, around 2500 BC.
You can see the remains of several small oval houses from the late Bronze Age. They have very thick stone walls. These buildings are a bit like those at Skara Brae in Mainland, Orkney, but they are smaller and from a later time. In the earliest days, these houses might have been partly underground. This helped make them stable and kept them warm.
Archaeologists also found signs of a cattle stall. It had a channel for waste that led to a tank in a courtyard. A whale bone was even set into a wall, perhaps used to tie up animals. Broken molds from the smithy show that people made axes, knives, swords, and pins there. A bronze dagger was also found. The tools suggest the smith learned his skills from Irish workers.
Other finds include bone pins and tools called awls. There's also a very special bone "plaque." This object is about 5 centimeters (2 inches) long. It has three holes and is decorated with patterns. No one knows what it was used for! After the Bronze Age, a layer of sand covered these structures. This suggests people stopped living there for a while before the next group arrived.
Iron Age and Pictish Times
The people of the Iron Age built their homes right on top of the Bronze Age settlement. They built a complex roundhouse. Later, this was replaced by an "aisled roundhouse." We don't have exact dates for these, but tools found suggest the aisled roundhouse might have been built before 200 BC.
The famous broch tower was built during this period. Part of it has been lost to the sea, so modern sea defenses are now in place. The tower was probably over 13 meters (40 feet) tall. Like many brochs, it would have had great views of the sea. During the Iron Age, many sites in Shetland had defenses, and Jarlshof was no different. An outer defensive wall was built around the broch. It once held a house and a byre (a cow shed). This wall was later used to build a large roundhouse next to the broch.
The earliest part of the wheelhouse complex dates back to 200 BC. Other parts were built later. Wheelhouses are round buildings with stone piers inside that look like spokes of a wheel. They create separate bays or rooms. The Jarlshof wheelhouses are among the best examples of their kind.
Three different building phases happened here. The best-preserved wheelhouse still has a large part of its stone roof. It shows a series of bays with corbelled (overlapping stones) roofs. One wheelhouse was first built as a circular building. The piers were added later. This might have been an earlier, less stable design. Unlike many wheelhouses in Scotland that are built into the ground, the Jarlshof ones seem to have been built from the ground up.
From the later Pictish period, archaeologists found a bone pin with a round head. It was probably used as a hair or dress pin and dates to AD 500–800. "Painted pebbles" are found at many Pictish sites. One was found at Jarlshof. This flat slate stone had a cross painted on it and two small "S" shapes. This suggests it might be linked to early Christian beliefs.
Only two Pictish symbol stones have been found in Shetland, and one was here. It shows a "double disc" shape and a "Z-rod." Pottery from this time includes "buff ware" bowls with flat rims. The quality of the pottery seems to get worse just before the Vikings arrived. The pots become thinner and simpler.
Ancient Roman writers mentioned islands they called Haemodae and Acmodae in AD 43 and 77. These are thought to be Shetland. Another early mention of Shetland might be when Tacitus wrote about the Roman fleet seeing "Thule" in AD 98. Some believe Tacitus was talking about southern Shetland, perhaps the area around the brochs at Jarlshof.
The Norse (Viking) Period
Remains from the Norse era once covered most of the Jarlshof site. It's believed that the Norse people lived here continuously from the 800s to the 1300s. Digs in the 1930s found the first confirmed Norse longhouse in the British Isles. Later excavations in the 1950s found proof of fishing and farming.
The Norse people kept sheep, cattle, pigs, and ponies. They ate fish like Atlantic cod, saithe, and ling. Whale and seal bones were also found, along with the remains of one dog. Chicken bones are rare in the Norse layers.
There are seven Norse-era houses at Jarlshof. However, no more than two were used at the same time. There were also several smaller buildings. One small square building with a large fireplace might have been a sauna. It was later replaced by two separate outhouses.
The biggest house from this period is a long, rectangular room, about 20 by 5 meters (65 by 16 feet). It had doors on opposite sides, wooden benches along the long walls, and a fireplace in the middle. Unlike earlier buildings with cone-shaped thatched roofs, the Norse buildings had ridged timber roofs. Later, this large building was also used to shelter farm animals. It had a paved center and stalls along the sides. Even later, it might have become an outbuilding.
Archaeologists were puzzled by the narrow door to the byre (cow shed). It seemed too small for a cow. The mystery was solved when another byre door was found on Unst. It had a narrow base like Jarlshof's, but it widened out to be cow-shaped at the top. Another small building has been thought to be a corn-drying room. Later houses were built at a 90-degree angle to the longhouse. These are similar in size and style to the croft houses common in Shetland until the mid-1800s.
One hundred and fifty loom weights were found. This suggests that making wool fabric was very important to Norse life. Fishing weights from the later Norse period show that deep-water fishing was also common. Jarlshof also had many iron tools, like shears, scissors, sickles, a fish-hook, and a knife. The iron ore came from local "bog iron." Hazel, birch, and willow trees grew nearby. But pine and oak wood must have been driftwood or brought from other places.
Drawings scratched on slate have been found. They show ships with dragon heads, pictures of an old man, a young bearded man, and a four-legged animal. These drawings were found in the Viking layers but look like Pictish art. This might mean they were made before the Norse arrived. Or, it could show that art and culture continued from one period to the next.
Even though the Norse buildings are rectangular, unlike the round Pictish ones, the lowest parts of the walls were built in the same way. Viking-style loom weights and other items were found with stone discs and objects that looked Pictish. A bronze object with gold plating from Ireland (8th or 9th century) was also found. Many items from this period are now in the Shetland Museum. Jarlshof has the most complete remains of a Viking site visible anywhere in Britain.
The Old House of Sumburgh
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The large stone building, now called Jarlshof House, was built during the Scottish period. It started as a medieval stone farmhouse. In the 1500s, Robert Stewart, 1st Earl of Orkney, made it into a fortified house after Scotland took over Shetland. He called it "New Hall."
His son, Patrick Stewart, 2nd Earl of Orkney, updated it in the early 1600s. He renamed it the "Old House of Sumburgh." Later, it belonged to John Buchanan and Margaret Hartsyde. But it was left empty in the late 1600s. The building was also known as "The laird's house" and "Stewart Mansion."
Images for kids
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The exterior of the wheelhouses at Jarlshof
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The interior of a Jarlshof wheelhouse showing bays between the stone piers.
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Re-creation of a Viking settlement in L'Anse-aux-Meadows, Newfoundland, Canada similar in scale to Jarlshof.
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The Old House of Sumburgh dating from the early 17th century
