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Field Visit
Date 8 June 1915
Event ID 1104218
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1104218
Dun Ban.
The ruins of Dun Ban occupy a small rocky promontory jutting out into the Atlantic, on the western side of the island of Barra, about ¾ mile west of Halaman Bay, near Tangusdale. The coast here is rocky and rugged and the site is one of the wildest and most desolate in the island. The rock rises about 40 feet above the water; on either side is a rocky gully, while it is cut off from the bare hillside behind, to the south, by a hollow walled by a rocky bluff, about 12 feet high, on the side next the dun. The fort consists of a circular building erected on the highest point of the peninsula, with an outer wall erected on the top of the bluff on the landward side, some 66 feet distant. So much of the main building has been removed, and so badly disturbed are the remaining portions, that it is impossible to state definitely what was its character. On the southern side it has been cleared away, and on the remaining portions nothing remains but dislodged stones, 4 to 5 feet deep, covering a space 12 feet wide in places. The outer foundation course can be detected in parts, and the external diameter from north to south is some 60 feet. It is not improbable that the building was a broch.
The outer wall is also in a very ruinous condition, and behind it is a great mass of tumbled blocks of stone. No trace of the entrance in either the main building or outer defence can be seen.
RCAHMS 1928, visited 8 June 1915.
OS map: Barra lxiv.
