Archaeology Notes

Event ID 675602

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/675602

NM82NW 4 8175 2710.

(NM 8175 2710) Fort (NR) (remains of)

OS 1:10,000 map, (1976)

The remains of a fort occupy the level summit of an isolated, rocky hillock overlooking the south side of the bay called 'The Little Horse Shoe'. Access is difficult as the flanks of the hillock consist of sheer rock cliffs broken at two points on the NW and NE by steep grass-covered slopes. The fort is oval on plan and measures 36 metres by 27 metres within a single wall drawn round the extreme edge of the summit. Although the wall is largely reduced to a slight band of stony debris its line can be traced for the whole circuit, apart from a small gap in the NE. It appears to have measured from 2.5 metres to 3 metres in average thickness. On the SW however where the rubble core survives to a height of about 1 metre, the thickness of the wall increases to a maximum of 3.6 metres on either side of the entrance. At the outer end, the entrance passage is 2.4 metres wide narrowing to 2.1 metres at its inner end, the side walls giving no indication of having been checked for a door. Outside the fort wall on the NE a thin band of stony debris up to 1.2 metres thick appears to represent the remains of another wall, of much less substantial nature, built round the margin of a fairly level shelf some 3 metres below the summit. The gap in the fort wall in the NE may well mark the position of a postern giving access from the fort interior to the outwork.

RCAHMS 1975.

As described.

Surveyed at 1:10,000.

Visited by OS (W D J) 12 November 1969.