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Field Visit
Date June 1976
Event ID 1166566
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1166566
NR 354 890. This fort is situated 450m ENE of Oronsay House on the top of a rocky ridge which forms part of the E flank of Beinn Oronsay. On the N and E it is separated from the rest of the hill by steep-sided gullies and on the s it is protected by precipitous crags up to 30m high.
The fort measures 69m from E to W by 74m transversely over a wall up to 3.5m in thickness. No trace of the wall survives on the SW, and elsewhere it has been reduced to a low mound with a few stretches of the outer face still in position. Much of the w half of the interior is composed of bare rock, but the E half of the interior is level and grass covered. On the NNE there are the foundations of two oval huts which have been built over the collapsed fort wall (see also Dun Eibhinn and Dun Meadhonach on Colonsay), and to the W of them a basin (b on RCAHMS plan) measuring 0.6m by 0.5m and 0.3m in depth has been carved in a rock outcrop. A modern cairn (a on RCAHMS plan) stands at the W end of the interior. The entrance, which presumably lay on the E, was protected by an outwork enclosing a terrace some 3.5m below the fort wall. From the terrace a stone-revetted trackway leads down to the gully N of the fort. On a lower terrace, E of the outwork, there are traces of a recent enclosure comprising a turf wall on the N and several boulders on the E. A number of potsherds and a bone bobbin from the fort are preserved in the Hunterian Museum,
University of Glasgow.
RCAHMS 1984, visited June 1976
