A special kind of tree house

The Scottish Crannog centre brings history to life in spectacular fashion. Joyce Bram went to visit it.

I must confess I'm a bit of a Philistine when it comes to history. Museums make me morose and castles leave me cold. But even I couldn't fail to be impressed by the Scottish Crannog Centre, near Kenmore, on the shores of Loch Tay in Perthshire.

The reconstruction of a round home on stilts over a loch, the likes of which hadn't been seen in Scotland since 500BC, was an ambitious project undertaken by underwater archaeologists, Ms Barrie Andrian, managing director of the centre, and Dr Nicholas Dixon, from Edinburgh University, the instigator of crannog research.

They set up The Scottish Trust for Underwater Archaeology about 11 years ago, and since then have made some amazing and significant discoveries.

“Crannog is a term derived from a Gaelic word meaning young wood or tree,” Barrie told me.

“The earliest crannogs date as far back as 5,000 years. There are at least 400 or 500 sites all over the country, and it's believed they were in use until the 17th century.

“There were different types of crannog, all imposing structures which required large amounts of resources to build and maintain.”

The idea of living on a natural, or man made, island was an attractive one for several reasons; a crannog was probably a status home for an important member of the community and his extended family, possibly housing 15 to 25 people at a time.

Being surrounded by water would have been an effective form of defence against, what were in those days, common animals such as; wolv...

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• By : Joyce Bram
• In : Best of Scotland
• Issue : 12
• Page : 66
• Words : 1,033