Archaeology Notes

Event ID 706032

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/706032

NL58SW 6 5486 8120

(NL 54868120) Dun (NR)

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

The small island of Geirum More, on which a Dun is marked by the OS, is said to have the foundations of a church. There is a boat slip above high water on the eastward end: Not Visited.

RCAHMS 1928.

Wedderspoon (J Wedderspoon 1915) is probably referring to the same site when he notes some "ancient remains" on a small un-named rock in the sound between Mingulay and Barra-head. "The rock ... is inaccessible except from the side next Mingulay, where the face is terraced. These terraces may be partly artificial, as they lead by short traverses to the top, which is flat and covered with grass. A low stone breastwork occupies the face of the rock above the terraces, and the latter have been protected on the sea side with similar breastworks".

"As seen from the boat, the remains of those walls were from two to three feet in height, and built of dry stonework; the rock is at least 60 feet high, and as a place of defence it must have been impregnable."

J Wedderspoon 1915.

The small island of "Geirum More" is as described above, but no trace of a dun could be found on it. The breastworks mentioned by Wedderspoon (J Wedderspoon 1915) are, in fact, natural layers of rock strata and surround the N, E and S summit of the island.

In the NE sector of the top there are the remains of several oval shielings, and in the S at NL 5486 8120, a rectangular building measuring 7.6m by 4.3m, with walls 2.0m wide, surviving to a height of 0.7m. This building is orientated E and W and maybe the remains of a church or chapel, although it is of drystone construction with no trace of lime or shell mortar: the door, 0.7m wide, is at the E end and is marked by two large stones. These are respectively 1.0m and 0.5m high, and beside these stones, and on top of the tumble, there is a possible lintel stone 2.8m long by 0.4m wide by 0.2m thick. No further information could be obtained about this possible church or the alleged dun, although the existence of the shielings is well known locally.

Visited by OS (R B) 18 May 1965; J Wedderspoon 1915.The grassy summit of Geirum Mor contains ruins of (a) a rectangular building 7.6m by 4.3m, with its entrance 0.7m wide at its E end, 2.0m wide walls and surviving to a height of 0.7m. (b) an oval shieling 4.0m by 2.0m and 0.5m high. (c) an oval shieling 6.5m by 3.7m and 0.6m high. (d) an oval shieling 5.5m by 3.5m, grass-covered footings only. (e) a circular shieling 2.6m diameter and (f) an oval shieling 2.8m by 2.0m and 0.3m high.

Visited by OS 18 May 1965.

The remains of a subrectangular building were observed from a helicopter on the grass-grown top of this sea stack off the SW tip of the island of Mingulay. There is also a line of drystone wall at least five courses high, part way up the cliff on the E side of the stack. The walling appears to revet a terrace and part blocks the only accessible route to the top. The walling was identified from a boat and is probably the same as that described by Wedderspoon (1915).

MING03 483

Visited by RCAHMS (AGCH) 17 March and 2 July 2003