Archaeology Notes

Event ID 672679

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/672679

NL94SW 6 9336 4006.

(NL 9336 4006) Fort (NR) (rems of)

OS 1:10,000map, (1976)

Fort, Eilean na Ba: This fort occupies a rocky promontory separated from Beinn Ceann a' Mhara by a gorge 16.5m deep. The landward side is defended by a single stone wall which has been reduced to a low stony mound 1m in average thickness; no inner facing-stones are visible but there are several short stretches of outer face. On the seaward side the defences have been limited to two short stretches of walling on the SE (B and C), blocking gullies that could be approached from the sea.

Only a small proportion of the area enclosed is suitable for habitation, much of the interior consisting of jagged rock-sheets; but from the highest point of the fort, on the NW, the ground slopes south-eastwards in a series of turf-covered shelves, and on the first of these there are the traces, now too indefinite to plan, of what may have been at least two circular stone-walled houses. The entrance to the fort lay on the E where the cliff is interrupted by a gully. The approach has been improved by steps cut in the gully floor, and by a stone-revetted causeway (D) which leads across the gorge from the base of the steps.

RCAHMS 1980, visited 1975; E Beveridge 1903

Surveyed at 1:10,560.

Visited by OS (D W R) 26 June 1972.