Skye, Dun Boreraig

Dun Boreraig, Boreraig.

About ½ mile south-east of the township of Boreraig on the west side of Loch Dunvegan is a bold headland rising in very steep scarps and rocky bluffs from the shore of the loch to a height of over 100 feet above sea-level. Some 25 yards from the edge of the bluff is a flat-topped rock rising from 20 to 30 feet above the surroundings, the summit of which is accessible only by a rocky slope on the south. This rock is occupied by a broch, Dun Boreraig, which even in its ruined condition is a prominent landmark from the north and south. It approaches to within 3 feet of the edge of the rock on the north side, but towards the east, south and west there intervenes an irregular enclosure with the remains of its boundary wall, 4 feet in width and in places still standing to a height of 3 feet or more on the outside, built round the edge of the cliff. The broch is circular, measuring 35 feet in diameter internally with a wall varying from 10 feet 4 inches to 11 feet 3 inches in thickness in general, but to 13 feet over a cell at entrance. The outer face of the wall varies in height from 2 feet on the north to 8 and 9 feet on the south and south-east, a considerable part at the two last places being hidden by fallen stones. Most of the interior is filled, to a general depth of 4 or 5 feet, with stones, but on the eastern side the debris is much deeper. Part of a scarcement, about 8 inches wide and about 7 feet above entrance level, is visible on the south-western arc of the inner wall, where the building still shows a height of 4 feet 6 inches above the scarcement. The entrance is on the west, and though obscured and much destroyed seems to be about 2 feet 10 inches in width at the outside, seemingly widening without checks to 3 feet 4 inches inside. Some 3 feet 6 inches to the south of the entrance passage there is a circular and now roofless chamber in the thickness of the wall, that measures about 5 feet in diameter above the debris inside, and in height would reach to about the level of the scarcement. Traces of a gallery in the wall, apparently at a higher level than the circular cell, can be traced almost round the whole circuit of the building, but only a small section indicates its width, which averages 2 feet 8 inches with its outer wall 4 feet 3 inches thick, and the inner wall about3 feet 9 inches. (Fig. 210.)

The entrance through the outer line of defence seems to have been over a sloping rock towards the south, and on this rock surface is a circular cup-like hollow 8½ inches in diameter and 3½ inches deep. It has every appearance of being artificial, but adjoining it is an irregular depression on the rock with somewhat similar markings which seem natural.

RCAHMS 1928, visited 10 June 1921.

OS map: Skye xiv.

NG15 1 DUN BORERAIG

NG/1948 5311

Unexcavated broch in Duirinish, Skye, standing about 100 ft above the sea on a high, rocky headland and situated on a sheer-sided, flat-topped rock knoll rising 6.1-9.2m (20-30 ft) above the flat surrounding ground; it has an outer defensive wall and over-looks modern farmland as well as Loch Dunvegan (visited 22/4/63 and in Aug. 1985).

Description

Both the outer and inner faces of the broch wall are intact and the former, containing huge, squarish blocks, sur-vives up to six courses high on the east (Illus. 8.002 and 8.005). The entrance passage is on the west and, though full of debris, appears to be about 0.86m (2 ft 10in) wide at the outer end. The door-frame, consisting of two built checks, can be seen 1.22m (4 ft) from the exterior after which the passage widens to 1.15m before narrowing again to 1.02m (3 ft 4in) at the inner (the width here has also been measured as 0.6m [3, 856]). These door-checks were not observed by the Commission [2].

A circular mural chamber about 1.52m (5 ft) in diameter to the right (south) of the entrance may be a guard cell but the door to it was invisible when the author last saw the site; according to Swanson “narrow, lintelled openings into the cell are visible near its present floor level in the south and east”, both being only about 30cm wide [3, 856]. What looks like a square aumbry (An open-fronted cupboard or shelf built into the wall.

) is visible in the rear wall of the cell and traces of the corbelled roof are still visible.

A ledge-type scarcement, some 20cm (8in) wide, is exposed on the inner wallface from the entrance passage anti-clockwise to about 1.30 o'clock and at the level of the rubble which fills the interior. There are three well built courses (with one block of a fourth) of the inner face – made of massive blocks, rising to 1.35m (4 ft 6in) – above the scarcement which itself appears to be about 2.1m (7 ft) above the ground outside the entrance. The sides of an upper gallery, well above scarcement level, are visible at intervals most of the way round the wallhead, so the structure is clearly a hollow-walled broch. Swanson suggests that there is a void, perhaps 1.15m wide at its inner end, leading into this gallery, and above the scarcement, at 6 o'clock [3] but the author did not see this.

A formidable outer wall almost surrounds the broch, running round the edge of the knoll; it is about 1.2m (4 ft) wide and still stands 90cm (3 ft) high [3, plan]. The broch is within 1m of the edge of the knoll on the north side – where there is no outer wall – but elsewhere there is an enclosure of varying width within the wall. It has been suggested that the entrance through the outer wall has been up over sloping rock on the south side [2]. Here on an exposed rock face of the side of the knoll, below the outer wall just west of south, is a pecked bowl or hollow 215 mm (8.5in) in diameter and 90 mm (3.5 in) deep (see site ND06 1).

Structural analysis

Since the Level 2 intra-mural gallery is clearly visible this must be a broch, probably of the ground-galleried type even though nothing of the basal gallery in Level 1 can be seen (except perhaps at the probable guard cell [3, 856]). No trace of any Level 1 subsidiary doorways can be seen in the interior wallface because of the rubble filling the interior, so the location of the intra-mural stair is uncertain. However if there is a wide void in Level 2 – at 6 o'clock and above the scarcement – this might well mean that there is a landing inside the wall behind this and that the first flight of the stair leads up to it. The void would then be the remains of the doorway leading from the stair out to a wooden annular raised floor in the court.

Dimensions

Internal diameter (below scarcement level) 10.7m (35 ft): external diameter about 17.4m (57 ft) [2]. From these early measurements of the author's the wall proportion would be about 39%. In 1971 and 1986 the shape of the central court was accurately mapped and it proved to be close to a true circle with a radius of 5.072 +/- 0.054 m; thus the true diameter is 10.144m (33.26 ft) . The original internal diameter [2] was probably taken above scarcement level and the wall proportion is in fact about 42%.

Sources: 1. NMRS site no. NG 15 SE 1: 2. RCAHMS 1928, 154-56, no. 505, and figs. 222 and 279: 3. Swanson (ms) 1985, 855-56 and plan: 4. MacSween 1984-85, 42, no. 7, fig. 7 and pl. 4: 5. Graham 1949,

E W MacKie 2007