Archaeology Notes

Event ID 658797

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/658797

NG44NW 8 4175 4785.

(NG 4175 4785) On the SW side of Skeabost Bridge, a rocky knoll named Dun a Cheitechin carries the remains of a broch and its outworks. The site is now wholly turf-covered but it is possible to pick out, on the highest point of the knoll, a roughly circular building c. 20.0m in external diameter, with walls c. 4.0m thick, almost certainly a broch.

A less substantial wall forms an outwork enclosing the summit. No entrance to the broch is visible, but a gap in the NE corner of the outer defence seems to be original since it coincides with the approach route from the N (up a ridge and through a natural cleft in the rocks.) On the pasture below the knoll, to the E, are about 4 ruined houses.

Dun a Cheitechin as misapplied on the 1904 6" to the rocky knoll immediately SSE. The correct name for this latter hill (NG 418 475) is Dun na h'Uamha or Cave Hill. The name Caroline Hill applies to the lower slopes of Dun a' Cheitechin. (Visible on RAF air photographs CPE/Scot/UK/175: 1197-8)

Visited by OS (C F W) 24 June 1961; Information from Mr Gilles, Tote, Skeabost.

(NG 4175 4785) Dun a Cheitechin (NR)

OS 6"map, (1966)

Probably a broch but its classification rests solely on the size of and shape of the surviving mound rather than on architectural detail of which only three or four outer facing stones on the W arc can be seen. The turf-covered mound, maximum height 2.0m, has been extensively quarried and there are no traces of wall faces to ascertain the wall thickness as described and planned by previous OS field surveyor whose plan, is, to say the least, ambitious.

The outer face of the outwork can be seen intermittently in the W arc, and one inner facing stone in this arc suggests a wall thickness of 2.6m.

The entrance near the NW corner is 1.7m wide and is flanked on each side by two earthfast stones. The wall in the E and S has been robbed and its course is scarcely distinguishable but several stones protruding from the turf suggest it followed the rim of the eminenece.

Visited by OS (I S S) 12 October 1971.