Field Visit
Date 13 August 1914
Event ID 932937
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/932937
Dun an Sticer, Loch an Sticer, Port nan Long.
Barely ½ mile SSE of Port nan Long is a shallow, tidal loch with the remains of a broch occupying an islet near its centre. Access to the broch is obtained by a well-built causeway 9 feet in width, which extends from the northern shore of the loch over intervening rocks to an island about the centre of the western arm of the loch. From this island, which is also connected with a promontory on the south shore by a short narrow causeway formed of massive blocks of stone, a causeway 9 feet broad and 180 feet long is carried in a north-easterly direction with a gentle curve to the north to the islet occupied by the fort, terminating 24 feet from the building. (Fig. 109.).
The broch is hardly a true circle on plan, varying from 60 to 61 feet in diameter all over, but it has been much destroyed to provide material for a later structure erected in the interior, and for building the stone dyke on the side of the road, some 300 yards to the west. The interior area of the broch is for the greater part occupied by the later building, but apparently it must have measured about 40 feet in diameter internally, the wall varying from about 9 feet to 12 feet in thickness. The best preserved portion of the wall is to the east, where, built with a slight batter, it rises 8 feet above some recent enclosures built at its base; to the south the outer face of the main wall reaches a height of about 5 feet, and the inner wall of a gallery rises about 6 feet higher; on the north-west, though the outline can be traced, the wall is completely broken down. Within the wall on the south-western arc at the floor level is an oval vaulted chamber measuring 8 feet in length and 4 feet 9 inches in breadth on the surface of the debris, which covers the floor to within 3 feet 6 inches of the roof. Low down in the western end of this chamber there is a lintelled opening resting on well-built jambs, 1 foot 6 inches apart, apparently the entrance, though now blocked up with rubbish. The roof of the oval chamber forms the floor of an upper gallery within the wall, which is traceable for more than half the circumference of the building and is best preserved on the east, where it shows a width of 2 feet 6 inches, with the outer wall 3 feet 9 inches thick and the inner wall 2 feet 9 inches thick. The inner wall of the gallery towards the south-west is pierced by a window looking into the interior of the broch and measuring 2 feet 3 inches in width. An entrance passage runs out towards the north and measures 2 feet 7 inches in width, apparently having a sill raised above the outside level by about 1 foot 3 inches. Access from the gallery to the later building in the centre of the broch has been by this passage.
The late structure built within the broch consists of a rectangular chamber with all the corners slightly rounded except that to the east, which is square. From roughly east to west it measures 33 feet 3 inches and from north to south 16 feet 3 inches, the wall on the south side measuring 3 feet 7 inches in thickness and on the north side from 5 feet to 8 feet. Near the western end of the north side is a window, widely splayed towards the inside, 7 inches wide at the outside and 3 feet inside. The door, which is near the east end of this wall, is 3 feet 6 inches wide. The wall of the broch at this part seems to have been purposely removed, as a returning wall is built across it to the west of the window. In the west wall at the south-west corner is another entrance, 2 ft 7 inches wide, and beside it is a large lintel, 7 feet long, 2 feet broad, and 1 foot 1 inch thick.
RCAHMS 1928, visited 13 August 1914.
OS map: North Uist xxxi
