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Field Visit
Date July 1975
Event ID 1170264
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1170264
NR 221 541. The rocky boss that forms the summit of an elongated coastal promontory some 400m SSE of Octofad farmhouse is occupied by the denuded remains of a dun and its outworks. Approached across a narrow natural causeway on the NNW, the promontory summit rises to a height of only 4-5m above the level of adjacent ground on the NW and is overlooked by higher ground on the same side. To the SE, however, the promontory falls steeply over rocky ridges to the sea, and elsewhere sheer cliffs 12m high afford strong natural protection.
The dun is an irregular oval on plan, measuring about 18m by 16m over the ruins of a dry stone wall, from which much of the core material has collapsed down the steep seaward slopes. However, a comparatively long stretch of the outer face has survived on the NW, and smaller isolated stretches and a single stone are visible elsewhere; all are set at the
bottom of the grass-covered stony scarp that indicates the course of the wall, some as much as 3m below the level of the summit. The inner line of the wall has been obscured by selective stone-robbing, possibly to build an enclosure of more recent date in the SE half of the interior. The enclosure, which appears as an oval depression, edged at various points with earthfast stones, was entered from the NE, a feature which suggests that on this side, too, lay the entrance of the dun.
The outworks take the form of stone walls of relatively slight construction, now reduced to low bands or scarps of grass-grown stony debris in which several stretches of outer facing-stones can still be seen. One outwork springs from the dun wall on the SW and follows the irregular margin of the cliff before returning to enclose an area of habitable ground immediately outside the dun. The extremely wasted remains of a second wall can be seen on the outer edge of a lower shelf to the s of the first, and a third wall was constructed on the margin of the cliffs to the N of the dun, the gap between its E end and the summit boss probably representing an original entrance. Abutting the inner edge of the outwork immediately NNE of the dun, there are the ruined foundations of a comparatively recent D-shaped enclosure.
RCAHMS 1984, visited July 1975
