The tallest and best-kept broch in Britain, an Iron Age drystone tower on an empty island off Shetland where storm petrels nest in the walls
Open to visitorsa Historic Environment Scotland site — many are free to wander; staffed ones charge and keep set hours
Substantial ruinsruined, but plenty survives above ground
A broch is an Iron Age drystone tower — round, hollow-walled, built without mortar — and Mousa is the finest one left standing anywhere. It rises over 13 metres on a small uninhabited island off the east coast of Shetland’s South Mainland, close to what it must have looked like two thousand years ago. The double wall has a stair running up inside it, and you can climb to the top. Storm petrels, small seabirds, nest in the cavities of the stonework, and on summer nights they return to their burrows after dark; there are late-evening boat trips timed to catch them. A passenger boat runs across from the Shetland mainland in the season. Historic Environment Scotland looks after the broch. Old Scatness, another Iron Age site with a broch and village, is a short way south, and the wider Shetland archipelago is worth days on its own.
