The Ness of Burgi fort is an iron-age promontory fort. It is about 1.6 km south from the village of Scatness, and may be reached by foot along a grass path that leads to the headland of the Ness of Burgi. The fort is on a rocky promontory on the east side of the Ness and is open to the public at all times.
The blockhouse seems to be excessively large for the area that it protects, and so was perhaps more designed to impress rather than to defend. The blockhouse structure seems to have been built as an integral part of the defensive wall. The walls do not reach the edges of the cliffs on either side. There is no evidence that they once reached further and since have been shortened through natural or human activity. The ends are properly finished. It seems that the gaps were deliberate, and defense was not a primary concern. In fact, there are other points on the promontory that provide equally good natural defensive positions.
There may be some similarity in this incomplete defensive wall with the forework of the Broch of Clickimin, the Huxter Fort and the Crosskirk Broch. These works may be seen as prototypes that evolved into the brochs that were later built in the islands and the Scottish and Irish mainlands.
References:The Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg is situated in a strategic area on a rocky spur overlooking the Upper Rhine Plain, it was used by successive powers from the Middle Ages until the Thirty Years' War when it was abandoned. From 1900 to 1908 it was rebuilt at the behest of the German kaiser Wilhelm II. Today it is a major tourist site, attracting more than 500,000 visitors a year.
The first records of a castle built by the Hohenstaufens date back to 1147. The fortress changed its name to Koenigsburg (royal castle) around 1157. The castle was handed over to the Tiersteins by the Habsburgs following its destruction in 1462. They rebuilt and enlarged it, installing a defensive system designed to withstand artillery fire.
The fortification work accomplished over the 15th century did not suffice to keep the Swedish artillery at bay during the Thirty Years War, and the defences were overrun.