Publication Account
Date 1995
Event ID 1016752
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1016752
Three successive fortifications have been built on a hogback ridge on the western shore of Loch Broom: a vitrified fort, a dun and a medieval castle.They have been partly excavated and the finds are in the Hunterian Museum, University of Glasgow.
On the highest part of the ridge are the tumbled remains of a small dun; piles of loose stones round the dun have fa llen from the walls, but the outlines of the wall-faces can be distinguished. West of the dun is a pile of stones cleared from the interior and retained by a modern wall, not to be confused with the wall of the dun. The entrance to the dun was on the east but is now blocked, as is a chamber which opened off it to the north in the thickness of the wall. On the west a doorway gives onto a little lobby and a stair leading upwards within the wall. There is some question as to whether this small round structure is a dun or a broch, but the fact that the wall is thin in relation to the overall diameter suggests that it is more likely to have been a dun.
The dun was not the first defence on the site but overlay an earlier fort occupying the whole west end of the hill, an area of some 90m by 35m. Its western end was defended by a massive stone rampart, now vitrified: good patches of vitrification can be seen at the western corner, and part of the outer wall-face on the northwest. There are no traces of ramparts on the precipitous north and south sides of the hill. Another stretch of rampart crossed the hill under the east end of the dun, with an entrance in the middle, and east of this there was a narrower outer wall, now obscured by later banks and ditches with trees growing on them. A rushy hollow within the fort may be the site of a well or cistern.
The third fortification on the hill was a small and extremely simple medieval castle, probably built in the 12th century AD. The ruins of the dun were cleared out to serve as a motte tower, while the western end of the hill, the old fort area, formed the bailey. Short stretches of mortared wall, much narrower than the fort rampart, run north and south from the dun to the edges of the hill. Abandoned crofthouses from the village of Newton Loggie can be seen south of the hill, and cultivation ridges and clearance cairns west of it.
Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: The Highlands’, (1995).
