Publication Account
Date 2007
Event ID 586784
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/586784
NC55 1 DUN NA MAIGH ('Dun Mai', ‘Dun Maigh’)
NC/5523 5303 (NC/5524 5321 – GPS)
This broch in Tongue, Sutherland, has been partly cleared out and is in a prominent and strategically well situated position (visited 10/7/63, 19/7/85 and 22/7/03). It stands in a dramatic situation on a high knoll of rock at the front or north end of a long ridge which divides the valley of the Kyle of Tongue at its inland end and projects into it. The site looks down on to the estuary and has an extensive view both over this and over the fertile land of the Kinloch river valley to the east. The rock knoll is precipitous on the west with a height of 15.25m (50ft) or more and there is an abrupt slope on the east where the entrance is. On the north and south the approaches are easier but they are blocked by outer defensive walls. The broch itself is evidently built on sloping rock with the entrance passage on the downhill side on the east-south-east.
There is a V-shaped cleft in the face of the cliff on the west (at about 12 o'clock) the upper part of which is built up to support the broch wall, a few feet back from its edge. At the foot of the cliff below this cleft is a huge pile of rubble, fallen from the broch, and the structure itself, from about this point to perhaps 2 o'clock, appears to be badly collapsed. It may be that the upper part of the masonry on the cleft gave way – perhaps while the broch was in use – and caused a major outward collapse of the wall on the west. If this broch is ever excavated an exploration under this rubble heap might prove rewarding, especially if the first collapse was ancient.
A scarcement of the ledge type is visible on the inner wallface at about 10.30 o'clock and at this point it is little more than about 1.0m above the level of the rock outside. Its width is 23-30.5cm (9-12in) and it is partly corbelled. However this ledge can be seen to be from 1.50 to 1.60m above the top of the remaining entrance lintels (measured with an alidade) so the surface of the rock at the entrance is clearly well below that on the opposite side. If one supposes that the passage lintels are about 1.7m above the rock at the inner end, a level scarcement will here have been about 3.70m above the floor (it is now destroyed in this segment of the wall). The situation at Dun na Maigh is thus likely to be rather similar to that at Caisteal Grugaig in Wester Ross (NG82 1) where a level scarcement also comes close to the interior rock floor on the uphill side and is much higher at the entrance on the downhill side. Assuming the ledge to have been level there can be little doubt that this is a true, hollow-walled broch.
The entrance passage itself is 5.03m (16.5ft) long and has been cleared out since 1909 [2]; several of the passage lintels are in position. Two sets of door-checks are visible, with a doorway leading to an oval guard cell in the right wall between them (invisible in 1909). The cell itself is partly corbelled but with a roof of flat lintels. The front door-frame has checks of built masonry and a bar-hole is behind them in the left wall. The checks of the rear door-frame are built of stone slabs set into the walls at right angles but these are now broken off short.
There are clear signs that the inner end of the passage has been partly rebuilt. The innermost right corner is a complete reconstruction and sits about 20cm in from the actual corner and resting on loose rubble; the lintel now over the inner end is supported by it.
The interior of the broch is full of debris but parts of the inner wallface are exposed. At about 2 o'clock is visible a long intra-mural space the left-hand part of which is a corbelled cell, choked with debris, and the right-hand section of which contains the stairway (the steps of which were not visible in 1963) rising to the right. One or two lintels are still in position above it but were probably replaced when the stair passage was exposed. The doorway leading into the wall here from the central court was not apparent in 1985 but had been partly exposed by 2003. In the outer face of the intra-mural gallery, and presumably opposite where the doorway should be and facing it, is a curious large double-tiered aumbry, next to the bottom step of the stair; its design is almost exactly the same as that in the Achvarasdal Lodge broch (NC96 3). By 2003 the upper opening had been carefully blocked with laid slabs.
Also after 1985 some extensive rebuilding must have been undertaken to the inner wallface anti-clockwise from the stair door. A considerable amount of rubble had been removed from this face for the purpose. This face now curves round into the interior (in a 'pit' in the rubble) and partly blocks the stair door. This site is urgently in need of proper consolidation, and of protection from uninformed digging and 'restoration'.
There are traces of what is probably a single defensive outer wall protecting the broch on the north, east and south sides [1].
Dun na Maigh is a rare example of a broch which has been examined by a geologist – Kevin O’Reilly.
“The local rock is a coarse-grained garnet mica schist, packed with large silvery flakes of muscovite (mica) and studded with dark reddish brown crystals of garnet. You will find that the broch itself is built from a very different rock; finer grained and largely made of quartz and feldspar, with only minor amounts of muscovite in tiny flakes. This material must have been quarried elsewhere and carried up the slope to the broch site – no easy task as the total weight involved was over a thousand tons.” [4]
The stones in the broch resemble sandstone in the sense that many are even and brick-like in shape.
Dimensions: the structure's external diameter through the entrance measures 18.61m (61ft) , the internal one 8.44m (27ft 8in). At right angles to this the measurements are respectively 18.91m (62ft) and 9.38m (30ft 9in): the average wall proportion is 52.8%.
Sources: 1. NMRS site no. NC 55 SE 1: 2. RCAHMS 1911a, 183-4, no. 527: 3. Close-Brooks 1986, 150-1, no. 81: 4. O’Reilly and Crockford 2005, Locality 14.
E W MacKie 2007
