Field Visit
Date 2 July 1921
Event ID 1102837
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1102837
Dun Cromore, Loch Cromore, Loch Erisort.
On an islet about 50 yards from the end of a promontory on the west side of Loch Cromore, and springing direct from the water's edge, is the ruin of Dun Cromore, sometimes called Dun Ban; a broch occupying the south-eastern part, with the remainder to the north-west forming an outer ward enclosed with a low broken wall about 4 feet 6 inches thick and 28 feet at most distant from the broch. (Figs. 31, 32.)
The broch is oval on plan with axes 52 feet and 44 ½ feet; the walls, varying from 7 feet to10 feet 9 inches in thickness, attain a height of from 10 to 12 feet. It has been connected to the mainland from the ward by a causeway still visible under water. The break in the wall at the north-west has presumably been the entrance, from the south jamb of which along narrow cell 12 feet by 3 feet has opened, and a somewhat similar one is traceable on the north. In the southern arc of the wall is a gallery, averaging 2 feet in width, now unceiled, with no entrance discernible. Captain Thomas in his description* mentions that within the gallery at the time of his visit a stair of seventeen steps led up to a third gallery, and underneath them a smaller stair led down from a second but with no exit. Though the gallery walls still remain as shown on his plan there is now nothing to suggest that stairs ever existed here.
A straight jamb of a void penetrates the wall on the north of the court, but its purpose is uncertain.
The foundations of later buildings were noticed under a tangle of briar or dog roses which overgrows the interior.
RCAHMS 1928, visited 2 July 1921.
OS Map: Lewis xxxiii.
*Archaeal. Scot., v., p. 380.
