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Field Visit
Date May 1968
Event ID 1175906
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1175906
NM 811 376. The remains of what is probably a broch with outworks (Fig. 43) stand on the NE end of a ridge overlooking Loch Fiart from a height of about 35 m OD. The steep sides of the ridge afford strong natural protection in all directions except the NE and SW, but additional defences have been drawn across the ridge only on the N. As a result of stone-robbing the remains now consist largely of a heavy band of grass-grown rubble representing the core material of a substantial wall; standing to a height of 1'2 m above the interior, it encloses a roughly circular area measuring about 13 m in diameter. Round the NW half of the perimeter some stretches of the outer face of the wall are exposed, standing at best to a height of 0·8 m in three courses. The only visible inner facing-stones, however, are on the W, where the wall has a thickness of about 4'9 m. The entrance is on the NE; only one of the side-slabs of the passage can be seen but originally it was at least 3.6 m in length and 1.5 m in width. Within the thickness of the wall on the W side a narrow lintelled gallery, measuring 0'4 m in width, can be traced for a distance of 6 m. Its depth cannot be determined without excavation as it is choked with debris to within 0'7 m of the underside of the lintels. The narrowness of this gallery indicates that, as at the broch No. 147 [Tirefour], its function must have been structural.
Additional defences, designed to protect the entrance, have been drawn across the ridge on the N, thus cutting off a flat shelf some 4.6 m below the broch. The remains of a wall run round the perimeter of this shelf, and stretches of outer facing-stones may be seen on the NW with a thin spread of debris behind them; on the NE it survives as a low stony bank interrupted by a wide gap in line with the entrance to the broch. About 2 m below the level of this shelf, a further platform has been bordered by a wall now reduced to a band of stony debris, and likewise interrupted by a gap at its E end.
RCAHMS 1975, visited May 1968.
