Note
Date 4 February 2015 - 18 October 2016
Event ID 1044161
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Note
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1044161
Duchary Rock, a rocky spur high up on the SW flank of Strath Brora, provides a spectacular setting for one of the larger forts in northern Scotland, with a cliff along the E margin and low crags dropping into steep rocky slopes elsewhere on the SW and to a lesser extent the SE end. The principal defence is a single wall barring access from the NW, where it measures 3.6m in thickness and still stands almost 1m in height, though the spread of tumbled rubble is up to 12m broad; an outer wall noted in by Alexander Curle in 1909 is probably part of this tumble (RCAHMS 1911, 11-12, no.29). A second wall cuts across the SE end of the spur to create a pear-shaped enclosure measuring 290m in length and contracting from a maximum of 110m in breadth on the NW to no more than 50m on the SE (2.3ha). The main entrance is on the NW and measures 1.8m in width and is lined with upright slabs. A second entrance on the SE is narrower, measuring about 1.2m wide, and lined with laid masonry; two upright slabs were noted in 1990 by Joanna Close-Brooks roughly halfway along the passage, and she identified a possible bar-hole slot in the NE face adjacent to one of them. Both these entrances are currently blocked with tumbled stones, but in the NW end A H A Hogg also noted up to four through joints in the thickness of the wall, two lying on the W of the entrance and another two on the E (1975, 194-5); those on the W also incorporate upright slabs, and give the impression that they are the sides of an entrance passage, which has been blocked with neatly laid masonry, and Hogg speculated that the others may be further entrances, which would amount to no fewer than four in this end. The peat-covered interior is featureless.
Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 18 October 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC2786
