Archaeology Notes

Event ID 672629

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/672629

NL58SW 4 5485 8023.

(NL 5485 8023) Dun (NR)

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

Sron an Duin, the promontory upon which stands Barra lighthouse, is occupied by a galleried dun, according to Feachem (R W Feachem 1963).

A massive drystone wall, some of the blocks of which are up to 7 ft in length and over 2 1/2 ft in width, curves convexly towards the land, cutting off an area about 45 yds by 14 yds which has been hollowed out at some time, leaving a ragged parapet of rock 6 to 10 ft in height all round.

Thomas (F W L Thomas 1890) states that the wall was 95 ft in length, 15 ft in thickness and 13 ft high, but the RCAHMS, in 1915 (RCAHMS 1928), found it to be only 9 ft in height on the outer side for the greater part of its length. They could not measure its thickness as the inner side was broken down and debris-covered, except at the N wall of the entrance-passage where it measured 13 1/2 ft. Abutting upon the outer face of the wall are the two precinct walls of the light-house.

Twelve ft from the NW cliff edge along the outer face of the wall is the paved entrance passage, still 5 1/4 ft in height and, at the time of its erection, 4 ft in width. But later walling against the SE passage face has reduced the width to 26 inches for a distance of 5 1/2 ft. There is a door check on the NW wall 3 1/2 ft from the outside, with a bar-hole behind it. Three lintel-slabs remain above the passage covering it for a distance of 3 3/4 ft.

The remains of two galleries, one above the other, are visible in the wall S of the entrance. Thomas (F W L Thomas 1890) says that the ground gallery began at the entrance passage at 8 ft from the outer wall and at that point was 3 1/2 ft wide, while Anderson's (J Anderson 1893) plan shows the S end complete. The RCAHMS found the lower gallery, where extant, to be 3 3/4 ft wide and to have lintel-slabs remaining in three places. The upper gallery retains its outer wall 52 ft in length on the inside, 5 1/2 ft in thickness and 3 1/2 ft in height above the lintel-slabs of the lower gallery.

R W Feachem 1963; RCAHMS 1928; F W L Thomas 1890; J Anderson 1893.

As described above.

Visited by OS (N K B) 21 May 1965.

BY17: A galleried dun, incorporated into the perimeter wall of the Barra Head lighthouse. Much destroyed by 19th-century building activity, the dun wall survives only on the E and SE sides. Long thin slabs of the gallery can still be seen built into the inside face.

P Foster 1992a; NMRS MS/595/7.