Archaeology Notes

Event ID 672578

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/672578

NMO4NE 1 0832 4767

For adjacent cup-markings (NM 083 476), see NM04NE 16.

(NM 0832 4767) Dun Mor a' Chaolais (NAT)

Brock (sic) (NR)

Broch, Dun Mor a' Chaolais: The rounded summit of Dun Mor a' Chaolais, a low rocky hill (39m O D) which dominates the NE end of Tiree, is occupied by the remains of a broch and its outwork. The position commands extensive views in all directions but does not provide a great degree of natural protection.

Measuring approximately 12m in internal diameter, the broch has been defended by a dry-stone wall originally about 3.7m thick but later increased to as much as 5.8m; it has been denuded by stone-robbing, presumably to provide material for the modern dykes that cross the site. The NE portion has been particularly severely disturbed. On the SW, however, the wall survives as a grass-covered stony bank about 1.5m high, in which several stretches of inner and outer facing-stones have been preserved in position. Within the body of the wall on the ESE there appears to be a small mural chamber, and a pronounced depression in the bank on the SSE may indicate the position of another. On the SW there are traces of a well-built intramural gallery which measures about 0.8m wide and was formerly much more extensive; it is probable that another intramural feature, perhaps a guard-cell, is concealed by the ruined foundations of a relatively recent rectangular building overlying the wall on the W, immediately to the S of the entrance.

An external revetment 2.1m in greatest thickness has been built against the outer face of the broch on all sides, presumably to give added stability to the dry-stone wall, but possibly also to allow it to be increased in height. It is best preserved on the SW half of the perimeter, where it appears as a stony scarp about 1m high, at the foot of which several stretches of outer facing-stones may be seen; many of these are of considerable size and less regular in shape than those of the original outer face, the difference in the character of the walling being so marked as to put the secondary nature of the revetment beyond doubt.

An Ordnance Survey triangulation station has been constructed on top of the broch wall on the N, and a modern marker-cairn overlies the line of the inner face on the W.

The outwork appears to have sprung from the outer face of the main work on the W, but the points of contact have been obscured by relatively modern disturbance, presumably associated with the construction of the sub-rectangular enclosure that straddles the line of the wall in this quarter. On the SW half, where it is best preserved, it survives at present as a grass-grown stony scarp, up to 1.6m in height, in which several long stretches of outer facing-stones are still visible; at one point the outer face stands 1m high in two courses. There is an entrance 2.1m wide on the S, and it is probable that another, situated somewhere within the wide gap on the N, has been destroyed to provide easier access to the now ruined rubble-built enclosure, of no great age, that lies to the N of the broch.

(Beveridge (E Beveridge 1903) picked up decorated pottery at this site, and notes that earthenware whorls are said to have been found.)

RCAHMS 1980; E W MacKie 1963; E Beveridge 1903.

Resurveyed at 1:2500.

Visited by OS (D W R) 24 June 1972.