Archaeology Notes

Event ID 673069

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/673069

NM31NE 3 3878 1899.

(NM 3878 1899) Dun a' Chiabhaig (NAT) Fort (NR)

OS 1:10,000 map, (1976)

Dun, Dun a' 'Chiabhaig: Situated on a prominent rocky knoll immediately NE of the public road leading from Bunessan to Uisken, and barely 300m from the shore at Port Uisken, there is a dun. On all sides but the W steep rock-studded slopes or vertical rock-faces up to 12m high afford strong natural protection. On the remaining side, however, the dun may be approached up be a gentle grassy slope. Roughly oval on plan, it measures about 30m from N to S by 15.5m transversely within a single stone wall which has been reduced to a low bank or scarp of stony debris in which a number of outer facing-stones can still be seen. No stones of the inner face have survived in position, but, if the elongated depression that appears in the wall-debris on the NW represents, as seems likely, the trench left by stone-robbers following the inner line of the wall, the original thickness at that point would be about 4.5m. The position of the entrance may be indicated by a pronounced dip in the core-material near the middle of the W side, but in that case the lowest courses of the outer face must have been continued across its mouth. The interior, which is partly overgrown with scrub, is divided into two unequal portions by a sinuous rocky scarp. A sub-rectangular enclosure of recent date abuts against the outer face of the dun wall on the NW.

RCAHMS 1980, visited 1974.

Noted as a fort when seen in 1972. Its condition was generally similar to that described by the RCAHMS (1980).

Surveyed at 1:2500.

Visited by OS (JP) 18 June 1972.