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Publication Account
Date 2007
Event ID 587047
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/587047
NG26 1 DUN GEARYMORE
NG/2368 6490
This probable ground-galleried broch in Duirinish, Skye, is the most northerly of the three brochs on the Vaternish peninsula and stands on a rocky knoll in an uninhabited tract of country; nevertheless there are many signs of former cultivation, including several small structures, and 'lazy beds', close to the broch [3, plan] (visited 24/4/63 and 15/8/85). There are traces of a defensive ditch to the east of the broch.
Description
As is often the case with dilapidated brochs the outer wallface is now quite low – being reduced to one course of masonry above the rubble in places – whereas the inner face is higher, though mostly hidden under rubble. Both faces are built neatly of squarish blocks of metamorphic rock. A long stretch of ground-level intra-mural gallery, completely lintelled over and intact, is accessible on the north-west arc [3, plan]; it runs for 8.1m (29 ft) – from about 7-10.30 o'clock if the entrance is just south of west – and is rarely more than 45cm (18in) wide and 1.5m (5 ft) in height now. A possible doorway to this mural gallery is visible, 45cm (18in) square.
At the east end of the roofed section, at about 10.30 o'clock, there is the curved end of an apparently elongated mural cell which was described as two adjacent cells which might be opposed guard cells on either side of an invisible entrance [2]. The position of the entrance seems to the author more likely to be on the opposite side of the broch, just south of west, and the cell mentioned perhaps to be the stair-foot guard cell. There are traces of the sides of the gallery throughout other parts of the wall, particularly from about 12-2.30 o'clock.
The dilapidated state of much of the outer half of the broch wall is probably to be explained by the ruins of recent buildings and stone dykes a few yards away on the north-east side [3, plan].
Dimensions
The internal diameter is about 35 ft 3 in (10.75m) and the wall is about 11 ft thick (3.36m). The external diameter would thus be about 57 ft (17.4m) and the wall proportion about 38%.
Sources: 1. NMRS site no. NG 26 SW 1: 2. RCAHMS 1928, 159-60, no. 511: 3. Swanson (ms) 1985, 845-46 and plan: 4. MacSween 1984-85, 43, no. 13 and fig. 13: 5. Ritchie and Harman 1996, 29.
E W MacKie 2007
