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Field Visit
Date May 1985
Event ID 1082692
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1082692
This small island lies 120m from the W shore of Loch nan Torran, a remote upland loch situated at an elevation of220mOD and some 3.8km SSE of Ormsary. It is founded upon several ridges of rock which form a natural boat-inlet, perhaps improved by quarrying, at the NE angle. It measures about 20m from E-W by 18m, and the perimeter is almost entirely encircled by a kerb of coursed boulders which provides a secure foundation for two drystone buildings. There is no evidence, however, that this kerb rose to form a defensive wall. A spur-wall extends NE to enclose the head of the boat-inlet, and shows traces of a possible entrance opening directly to deeper water. The area at the entrance to the passage between the buildings appears to have been cobbled, but most of this space is filled with accumulated soil to a height of about 1m, as are the buildings themselves.
The larger of the buildings (A on fig.) measures 6.8m from E to W by 4m within walls varying from O.8m to 1.2m in thickness. Its E gable-wall is preserved to a height of 1.8m, and the well-squared sw angle stands to I.3m, but the sidewalls are much reduced. The N wall, which rises directly from the boulder kerb, incorporates a probable doorway opening directly to the loch, opposite the main doorway in the S wall. In the E wall there is a recess or aumbry which has lost its lintel. Building B measures 6m by 3.5m within walls varying from O.7m to l.4m in thickness. The doorway in the N wall is well preserved, but the rounded angle E of this appears to have been rebuilt following a collapse.
A settlement on 'Oilen Loch Mack Torren' was indicated on Pont's map, surveyed in the last quarter of the 16th century, but nothing is known of the occupiers of the adjacent properties at that period, although the Campbell earls of Argyll had succeeded the Lords of the Isles as superiors of this area of Knapdale a century earlier (en.1*). The existing remains probably belong to the 16th or 17th century, but it is possible that the kerb is of somewhat earlier date than the buildings.
RCAHMS 1992, visited May 1985
