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Field Visit
Date May 1985
Event ID 1102543
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1102543
Situated on the summit of Barr Iola, a position that commands extensive views over Loch Fyne, there is a large and comparatively well-preserved dun measuring 24m by 17m internally. The dun wall measures about 3m in thickness and is best preserved on the N, where the outer face stands to a height of 0.6m in three courses; several other extensive stretches of the lowest course of the inner and outer faces survive elsewhere, while on the SE the outer facing of the wall has been carried across a cleft on a neatly built substructure 0.6m deep. Within the body of the wall about 1.2m from the inner face there are traces - too indefinite to plan- of what may have been a medial revetment. The entrance, situated on the W, is not well preserved, and there are no traces of the 'cell-like structure built on to the main wall just within it on the left' (Childe 1932); nor can any sign of a cell in the thickness of the wall be found at this point.
A low grassy scarp runs across the middle of the interior, the lower (NW) half overgrown with reeds. On the NE there is a short length of the inner face of the dun wall that diverges from the expected alignment, but, although the purpose of this feature is not clear, it seems unlikely that it was part of an internal building.
There is no evidence to suggest that the dun was ever surrounded by outworks, or that the group of boulders some 60m to the SW is a 'stone circle', as has been claimed (Newall 1960). The ruined rectilinear building situated on a platform immediately to the S is presumably of relatively recent date.
RCAHMS 1988, visited May 1985.
