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Publication Account
Date 2007
Event ID 586647
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/586647
NC23 1 KYLESTROME ('An Dun 6' NC/2170 3411
Probable solid-based broch (the diagnosis of the site in 1974 [1] as a “galleried dun” was presumably because the building then seemed to be sub-circular inside) in Eddrachillis, Sutherland, situated near the end of a rocky promontory or islet in the large sea loch Loch a' Chairn Bhain; the site is connected to the shore by a causeway made of boulders about 21m (70ft) long, 3m (10ft) wide and 60cm (2ft) high. The islet is now only cut off at high tide (visited 30/6/88).
The building has been partly cleared out and some crude restoration of the wallfaces has been attempted. It is circular, the internal diameter being measured originally at 8.69m (28ft 6in); in 1988 a fresh survey revealed that the central court has a radius of 4.57 +/- 0.25m, giving a diameter of 9.14m. The standard deviation is unusually large for a broch and may mean that the central court was not in fact set out with a peg-and-string compass, like so many others were. On the other hand the circularity of the wall may have become distorted at the high point at which the measurements had to be taken. The surrounding wall is about 3.6m (12ft) thick, but is wider on the north-east –4.27m-4.58m (14-15ft). The outer face can be traced in several places and in 1909 the inner was said to be several feet high all round and to rise to 2.1m (7ft) on the south [2]; now it is only about 1.2m (4ft) and is visible only for about half of the circumference. The entrance was reported to be on the south-east but the author's compass revealed it to be on the west, facing down the loch to the sea; it is 4.8m long and 1.1m wide [1].
The blocks forming the inner and outer ends of the right side are visible, as is part of the left wall. No door-frame can be seen at present. The entrance faces and is immediately above the steep rocky shore of the promontory. By 1971 part of an intra-mural gallery had been exposed on the north side, with a suggestion of a doorway leading into it; eight steps of the stair can be seen clockwise from this doorway ascending to the wallhead [1]. By 1988 the stair doorway had been skilfully blocked up and its sides are not easy to trace. There is a stair-foot guard cell to its left and in view of this, and of the absence of any signs of other doorways into the wall, the site is probably a solid-based broch.
Finds: a small near-circular steatite dish was found on the site in 1974 [1] together with a silver finger ring, but the latter was lost.
Sources: 1. NMRS site no. NC 23 SW 1: 2. RCAHMS 1911a, no. 168, 56: 3. T C Welsh in Discovery and Excavation Scotland 1971, 47: 4. Close-Brooks 1995, 134: 5. F Hunter in Discovery and Excavation Scotland 2002, 68.
E W MacKie 2007 c
