Image: whistle and lyre bridge, from EXARC.net 2020(1), Collinson, photographed under CC BY-NC 4.0 licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/deed.en
Soundyngs recently wrote about an ancient lyre bridge found in Skye (see Lyres before Harps?, 26 May 2025).
A reader (thank you Josh Perkins) has just posted a comment that this wasn’t the only lyre bridge to have been excavated; that the Scottish Crannog Centre at Loch Tay had also found one.
Josh is right.
Crannogs were fortified settlements positioned on islands on the edges of lochs and bogs, reached by bridges or causeways that could be defended against attack. They can be found both in Ireland and Scotland. In Loch Tay in Perthshire, one was found and reconstructed, and is a marvelous visit for anyone wanting to find out more about life in ancient Scotland. For archaeologists, it’s been a rich place of excavation, as the cold, peaty loch water has proven to be a great medium for preserving ancient organic matter from the site.
An article (Collinson, 2020) in EXARC has a photograph of the musical finds made at Loch Tay: a wooden lyre bridge, clearly notched for strings, and a little whistle. The crannog at Loch Tay was occupied in Iron Age Scotland some 2500 years ago, and the EXARC article points out that the lyre bridge is similar to the one found at High Pasture Cave in Skye which dates from a similar period. The implication is that lyre playing might have been a cultural practice found across Scotland at the time.
The Scottish Crannog Centre has been innovative in its education strategies – not least in the reconstruction of the crannog itself. During the COVID lockdown, they made a series of videos posted to Youtube videos talking about the site, and key finds, including this little whistle and lyre bridge. These are well worth watching, to find out more about ancient Scotland.
The reconstructed roundhouse at the Scottish Crannog Centre was destroyed by fire in 2021, but it has been rebuilt and is a great day out for all ages. This has been a whole-community effort, for which it won a sustainability award (Heritage Fund, 2024). If ancient crannogs protected communities, then rebuilding ancient crannogs clearly helps to make and enhance modern communities.
Further Reading
- Frances Collinson, ‘Reaching Out to the Communities We are Here to Serve: Developments at the Scottish Crannog Centre’ in EXARC Journal Issue 2020(1), published 25th Feb 2020
- Heritage Fund UK, ‘Case Study: The Scottish Crannog Centre’, 20 Aug 2024
- Scottish Crannog Centre website
- Scottish Crannog Centre Youtube Channel