Publication Account
Date 2007
Event ID 587224
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/587224
NM34 1 DUN AISGEAN
NM/3774 4524
There is little doubt about the identity of this unexcavated broch in Kilninian and Kilmore even though it is classed as a “galleried dun” in the latest account [3] (visited 5/6/64 and 6/10/89). The structure is well preserved, the wall standing nearly 3.05m (10 ft) high until recently but a little less in 1974 [3]; it stands on a rock knoll with some sheer faces. The site is close to the sea and overlooks it, and is not far from some formerly cultivated land with ruined crofts. Some of the blocks in the wall are very large and the lintels over the entrance are massive. The lower part of the external wallface is vertical, the upper part battered.
1. Description
The entrance faces just west of south and has built rebates for a door about 1.65m (5 ft 6 in) from the exterior; one of the checks was still visible in 1989. Within the door-frame the passage width increases from 1.0m to 1.5m. A very large lintel has fallen forward from the front end but is not triangular; it must however have stood on edge originally, and have supported the weight of the outer wallface. An unusual feature is the weed-covered masonry which runs over the lintel at the inner end of this passage; if this is original there would seem to have been no opening to the interior from any chamber over the entrance. The passage is 2.90m (9 ft 6 in) long indicating a relatively thin wall for a broch.
Immediately clockwise from the entrance a narrow length of mural gallery can be seen by peering into the rubble. Only about 0.30cm (12 in) wide, it stands higher than the entrance lintels and ought therefore to be in Level 2. Its rough sides are traceable to about 9 o’clock where there are signs of a doorway to the interior, presumably raised. At the right edge of this door is another very large lintel bridging the gallery. A scarcement of the ledge type – turfed over in places, uneven in level and about 38 - 45cm (15 - 18 in) wide – is traceable intermittently from about 6-9 o’clock, to just beyond the possible gallery door. Thereafter the inner face is visible at a slightly lower level. The narrow gallery is again visible at about 10.30 o’clock and its lintels must here be about 90cm (3 ft) above the scarcement.
There has been an outer wall all the way round the broch – following the irregular edge of the summit of the knoll – but it is only visible as such on the south-west, where the outer face stands six courses high.
2. Discussion
In spite of its relatively thin wall Dun Aisgean is classified as a hollow-walled broch here because of, first, its clear Level 2 gallery, second its scarcement and, third, the massive lintel in front of the entrance which seems to indicate a high wall. The Commission investigators do not mention the scarcement or the possible gallery door at 9 o’clock and this doubtless explains the term they used for this site [3]. Nevertheless Dun Aisgean is not typical of a broch, firstly because of the thinness of its wall and secondly because of the masonry resting on the innermost lintel of the entrance, though this could be the result of misguided ‘reconstruct-ion’ in modern times of the kind which one so often sees in remote highland brochs.
3. Dimensions
The external diameter is 15.10m (49.5 ft) from 6 - 12 o’clock and the same from 9 - 3 o’clock; the corresponding internal diameters are 9.30m (30.5 ft) and 9.46m (31 ft). The wall proportion is thus 38.4% and the average wall thickness is 2.86m (at the entrance it is 2.9m, as noted). The Commission [3] gives slightly different measurements – an internal diameter of 10.4m with an average wall thickness of 2.3m increasing to 2.75m at the entrance. The wall proportion would thus be 30.7%, much less than the author’s figure.
Sources: 1. NMRS site no NM 34 NE 8: 2. Duns 1883, 86-7: 3. RCAHMS 1980, 101, no. 186, fig. 107 and pl. 15, B and C: 4. Ritchie and Harman 1996, 128.
E W MacKie 2007
