Publication Account
Date 2007
Event ID 587231
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/587231
NM45 1 AN SEAN DUN (‘Balia-chrach’)
NM/4310 5624
This broch, probably ground-galleried, in Kilninian and Kilmore is classified as a dun by the Commission [2]. The site stands in the midst of moorland on a high, sheer rock knoll at the end of a long ridge and with a steep climb up to it most of the way round (visited 4/6/64 and 9/10/89). From the outside it seems to stand only a few courses high but since the scarcement is visible most of the way round, there must be 1.5 - 1.8m (5-6 ft) of inner face below this.
Description
Level 1: the structure is circular and the entrance, full of debris, faces west-north-west. A large lintel at the inner end has fallen in, and the passage narrows at the outer end; the door-frame is probably hidden under the debris. There are no clear signs of guard cells. The whole of the inner wallface can be seen, and much of the outer; in the north the latter stands up to 1m high in three courses and includes some very large stones up to 1m long. The only clear sign of the structure of the wall at ground-level is between 1.30 and 3 o’clock where the inner face of the intramural gallery goes down below scarcement level; thus the broch is probably of the ground-galleried type. There is also the evidence of the doorway at 9 o’clock (below).
Level 2: at 9 o’clock is visible a doorway from the interior, lacking its lintels, and the inner face of a mural gallery is traceable running a few feet clockwise from it; this is presumably the stair door. Its left side can be seen to go 1.5m (5 ft) into the wall so there is presumably no stair-foot guard cell or ground-level gallery at this point. The interior is full of debris but a well- preserved scarcement of the ledge type can be seen to run round the inner wallface; the gallery door is below this so it probably gives access to a ground-level gallery. From about 1.30 to 3 o’clock the inner face of the mural gallery is again visible at scarcement level and this ought to be a first-floor one. The wall stands nearly 60cm (2 ft) higher than the scarcement so its maximum surviving height should be at least 1.8 - 2.4m (6-8 ft).
There are traces of an outer wall close to the broch on the inland side.
Discussion
The Commission diagnosed the intramural wallface visible on the north-north-east and the south – that is, at 4 and 9 o’clock – as probably a core revetment rather than a hollow gallery and this is doubtless why the building is not classified as a broch [2]. However both the scarcement and the doorway into the wall from the Central court, as well as the suggestions that part of the gallery is an upper one, strongly suggest that An Sean Dun is a hollow-walled broch.
Dimensions. The internal diameter is given as 9.0m and the wall thicknes as 3.0m [2]. The 1989 angle-and-distance survey of the central court below scarcement level has not yet been analysed (the drawing is in the National Monuments Record).
Sources: NMRS site no. NM 45 NW 3: 2. RCAHMS 1980, 98, no. 177, fig. 100 and pl. 15, A: 3. Feachem 1963, 182: 4. Ritchie and Harman 1996, 124.
E W MacKie 2007
