Field Visit
Date 5 May 1989
Event ID 738634
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/738634
NO23SW 25 22253 32539
NO 2225 3253 Situated on a rocky knoll on the W side of the Sidlaw Hills and some 150m SW of, and below, Little Dunsinane, there is what is probably a small broch. It sits at a height of 3-5m above the surrounding moorland and has been heavily robbed. Little of the inner face survives, but there are several facing-stones on the NE arc and the top edge of the turf-covered rubble scarp elsewhere indicates an original internal diameter of about 12m. The outer face is set below and up to about 5.5m from the inner face, and on the SW it survives to a height of 1.25m in three or four courses. At this point, and elsewhere, the large basal blocks of the outer face are underpinned by smaller boulders, and, where it is best-preserved, the wall is clearly battered.
The entrance is on the E where access to the top of the knoll is easiest; it measures about 5.5m in length by 1m in width and is defined on each side of the passage by at least three facing-stones. Outwith the entrance there is a small annexe enclosed by a boulder-faced stone wall measuring about 2.5m in thickness and no more than 0.3m in external height. This wall is poorly preserved and, at its N end may have returned to abutt the outer face of the main structure. At its S end, the wall may have continued onto a section of outcropping. An entrance gap measuring about 3m in width, lies opposite the entrance to the main structure, and a little to the S of the main entrance there are the shallow remains of a small quarry pit.
Visited by RCAHMS (JRS, SPH) 5 May 1989.
