Archaeology Notes

Event ID 724600

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/724600

NX03SE 1 0891 3404

(NX 0891 3404) Crammag Fort (NAT)

Camp (NR)

OS 6" map (1957)

Classified as a promontory fort in 1912, it is suggested in 1963 that the structure on Crammag Head is most probably a broch. Since 1912, a lighthouse and other buildings have been built on the site, but they do not affect the ditch and outer bank which are still as shown on plan, but the E part of the stone structure, which was 60' in overall diameter, has been destroyed by the construction of a water tank and storehouses. The surviving masonry is very large and broch-like, but the wall thickness cannot be precisely determined as the inner face is nowhere visible; it seems possible that it was some 15' thick all round. On the NE some facing stones have fallen outwards. On the W side, the surviving outer face stands 5' - 6' below the centre of the enclosures; the foundations of the inner face were presumably at a higher level and have been removed.

RCAHMS 1912, visited 1911; MS 1953; R W Feachem 1963

These remains are generally as described although the plan of 1912 is more suggestive of a dun than a broch. An accurate classification of the surviving remains, a stretch of large squared grounders, is not possible. The ditch and outer bank may be the remains of an earlier work, but this can only be determined by excavation. The name "Crammag Fort" is not known locally.

Resurveyed at 1:2500.

Visited by OS (RD) 7 February 1972

Vitrified material was found at one point in the outer rampart, and among the small stones scattered on the slope below the rampart. There is also a spring within the area enclosed.

W M'Ilwraith 1877

The remains of what is probably a dun or broch with outworks are situated on Crammag Head. The dun measures about 19.5m in diameter over all but its wall has been reduced to little more than the basal course of the outer face around the W, and a thin scatter of debris on the E; the granite facing-stones measure up to 1m in length by 0.65m in breadth and 0.65m in height, and a maximum of three courses is visible on the NW.

None of the inner wall-face survives but, on the W, the interior, which is now occupied by Crammag Head Light, has been raised up to 1.8m above the outer face with material from a ditch immediately E of the dun. The ditch is broken by a causeway 2.5m wide which is faced with granite boulders along its S side; to the N of the causeway the ditch measures 9m in breadth and varies from 1.3m in depth externally to 2m internally, but to the S it is only 6.5m in breadth and 1.1m in depth. About 20m E of the ditch there is an outer rampart with external ditch; at its N end the rampart has been reduced to little more than a scatter of stones but towards the S it is up to 4.4m thick and 0.5m high.

The ditch is only visible at the S end of the rampart and measures up to 5.5m in breadth by 0.3m in depth. The entrance through the outer defence was probably at its S end where the rampart and ditch stop 3m and 5m short of the edge of the promontory respectively.

Earlier descriptions and plans of the site made before the construction of the light beacon (WGD/56/1, SAS 454) show that the dun was roughly circular with an entrance passage on the E, where the wall was at least 4.5m (and possibly as much as 6m) in thickness. In the 19th century 'vitrified' stone was recovered from the outer rampart.

Name Book 1848; W Todd 1854; G Wilson 1885; RCAHMS Survey of Marginal Lands; R W Feachem 1977; RCAHMS 1985, visited (SH) July 1984.

Dun (remains of) [NAT]

OS (GIS) MasterMap, July 2009.