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Field Visit
Date May 1967
Event ID 1176016
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1176016
NM 868 249. This dun (Fig. 57, plan), 570 m ENE of Dunach House, occupies the highest point of a tree-covered ridge situated close to the shore at the E end of Loch Feochan. Sheer rock-faces up to 18 m in height render the site almost impregnable on the E and W, but on the S the immediate approach is over more gently sloping ground, and to the N the line of cliffs is broken by a natural grassy ramp.
The dun wall has been severely reduced by stone-robbing and tree-planting, and now appears as a low band of rubble from 1'5 m to 2'7 m wide, enclosing a roughly oval area measuring 11.6 m by 14'3 m; no facing-stones are visible. Of the two gaps in the wall debris, that on the NNW almost certainly represents an original entrance, while the one on the E was probably caused by recent disturbance. There is no trace of the internal 'traverse' recorded by Christison (PSAS, xxiii (1888-9), 392), and it seems unlikely that such a feature ever existed. Inspection of his published site-plan strongly suggests that Christison mistook the natural scarp situated to the NNE of the entrance for an artificial defence-work and was therefore led to interpret the arc of dun wall lying immediately to the S of it as some form of internal blocking.
On the S, where a broad shelf slopes gently down from the dun to the shore, additional defence has been provided by an arc of walling drawn across the ridge from E to W. It too has been subjected to severe stone-robbing, all that remains being a moss-grown spread of stony debris 3 m in maximum width and 0'3 m in height. The quarries from which the core material was probably obtained can be seen as shallow scoops lying immediately within the line of the wall. A short stretch of stony bank situated on the edge of the cliff, about 13 m N of the dun, supports Christison's claim (Ibid, 391) that this side also was defended by an outwork.
RCAHMS 1975, visited May 1967.
