Archaeology Notes

Event ID 657550

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/657550

NF87SE 1 8628 7472.

(NF 8627 7474) Dun na Mairbhe (NR) (Site of)

OS 6"map, Inverness-shire, 2nd ed., (1904)

Dun na Mairbhe stood on a small tidal islet close to the east side of Ahmore Strand at Trumisgarry.

The main fort walls are traceable, about 62ft in diameter. At a distance of about 12ft on the east, but only 4 to 5ft on the steeper west side there is an outer wall. It is clearly visible on the NW but only to be inferred at the west end where it has totally disappeared.

Adjoining the steep west side is a flat semicircular space, also at one time protected by a wall, perhaps as an annexe to the 'fort' and communicating directly with it by a steep path.

The 'ordinary approach' was evidently up a slope to the SE.

E Beveridge 1911.

Dun na Mairbhe is generally as described above. The inner wall face is obscured by tumble except for a single stone on the north but the outer wall face can be seen clearly, in the SW, as a single course of large broch-like stones, 0.8m maximum height, forming a circle c. 18.6m in diameter with a conjectural wall-thickness of approx. 5.8m. No entrance is evident.

The vague line of a wall, 0.3m high, is traceable to the N and E, but this may be no more than a fortuitous arrangement of tumbled stones.

The drystone enclosure to the west, with walls 0.6m maximum height and thickness, is as described by Beveridge. The surviving features - size, shape, and construction - suggest this may be a broch, but the varying width of walling mitigates against it.

Surveyed at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (N K B) 16 June 1965.