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Archaeology Notes
Date 25 August 1977
Event ID 696921
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Archaeology Notes
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/696921
NR92NW 3 9065 2619
(NR 9065 2619) Cashel (NR)
Monastery (NR)
(Remains of)
Urn found AD 1909 (NAT).
OS 6" map (1924)
Balfour suggests that a Celtic monastic settlement was founded here by St Brandon; some slight excavation was made in 1909. The supposed "cashel" is 2.25 acres in extent and is enclosed by a wall 1.5m to 2.1m thick. A gateway appears to have existed near the S extremity; inside the enclosure signs of plough ridges can be seen. On the periphery of the enclosure in the N is a circular dun, around which the "cashel" walling curves. The dun itself is 16.8m in diameter, surrounded by a wall 3.7m to 4.6m thick within which there is at least one chamber. The entrance appears to have narrowed outwards as though checked for a door. This is the only dun of its type in Arran; but the galleried dun of Kildonan (NR72NE 5) lies directly across Kilbrannan Sound, and there is another example at Dunburgidale (NS06NE 11).
By analogy, a Romano-British date might be suggested though Kildonan was occupied intermittently into late medieval times. Earlier occupation at Kilpatrick was shown by the discovery (in 1909) of a short cist, containing a small, undecorated cinerary urn (inverted over bones, some only partly burned), beneath the wall of the dun. Several exceptionally long slabs are also noteworthy as possibly re-used at the time of construction of the dun.
Outside the enclosure are four hut circles (NR92NW 11-13). In association are alignments of boulders and an occasional clearance cairn indicating an ancient field pattern, now almost completely obliterated. Clearly the site has a long history, but the suggestion of a cashel is to be discounted in the light of more recent knowledge.
J A Balfour 1910; J N G Ritchie 1973; R McLellan 1977.
The activities of earlier excavators have made any meaningful survey of the present condition of this monument difficult. Nevertheless, two basic factors were noted: 1. It is a multi-phase monument and seems to incorporate an earlier large stone-built structure. 2. The construction, size and entrance detail of the "dun" are clearly linked with the structural details of the large hut circles elsewhere in the area; it may be viewed as simply a larger enclosure on the same lines - part of a dispersed farmstead comprising several large buildings.
The "cashel" enclosure is simply part of a very much larger series of enclosures all linked with the farmstead complex and comprising the cleared land appended to the farm. The walls of this series of enclosures are well built with many substantial orthostats binding on an earth-and-boulder barrier. The impression is not of a simple boundary marker or clearance wall, but of a series of qui te substantial barriers intended for the control of stock. Plans show a fairly logical group of walls sealing off the lower part of Kilpatrick area from what may have been upland pasture. Within the area of this presumably prehistoric farm a series of cairns occupy often prominent positions. Whether these are clearance cairns, or evidence of burials, is impossible to tell without excavation. (See NR92NW 18).
Information from Department of the Environment, Arran Field Survey MSS, 1976.
