RCAHMS County Inventory: Argyll Volume 2; Lorn

‘Following our usual practice we have prepared a detailed, illustrated Inventory of the Ancient Monuments of Lorn, being the second volume of the Inventory of the County of Argyll, which will be issued as a non-Parliamentary publication.

In the archaeological field, the survey has disclosed unrecorded examples of almost every class of monument included in the Inventory. From the wide range of prehistoric remains represented in Lorn, special mention may be made of the small but important group of Neolithic chambered burial-cairns of the 3rd millennium BC; we have been able to undertake some productive excavations on two of them, which have added significantly to our understanding of their structural history and affinities. Excavation, too, has resulted in the identification of a hitherto unrecognised category of Bronze Age burial-cairn of the 2nd millennium BC. Together with the examples already published in the Kintyre volume, more than one hundred and sixty Iron Age forts and duns have now been recorded in Argyll.

Lorn is particularly rich in castles, and as well as including detailed re-appraisals of several well-known medieval strongholds, such as Dunstaffnage and Dunollie, the present volume describes a number of hitherto unrecorded structures of this class. Domestic architecture, too, is well represented by an interesting group of Georgian mansions and by a corresponding series of small lairds' and tacksmen's houses, while selected examples of the numerous peasant townships and shielings of the same period have also been included. The most notable ecclesiastical monuments in the region are the Valliscaulian monastery of Ardchattan and the cathedral church of the diocese of Argyll on Lismore Island, both of which retain important remains of medieval date, while among post-Reformation buildings mention may be made of a small but unusually diverse group of Gothic Revival churches. Lorn also contains one of the outstanding monuments of the early Industrial Revolution, namely the charcoal blast-furnace and ironworks at Bonawe, whose extensive remains are fully described for the first time, while other examples of industrial and engineering enterprise now recorded include slate-quarries, limeworks, illicit stills, and a Stevenson lighthouse.’

RCAHMS 1975, xxvii-xxviii