Canna, Dun Teadh

A fort formed by an almost straight wall cutting across the neck of a broad cliff-girt promontory. The wall, 43.0m long, varies in thickness between 2.3m and 3.5m with a fairly straight outer face and a more irregular inner face, both marked by similar sized blocks on edge standing to a maximum height of 1.0m. The position of the entrance is uncertain through it could have been at the W end where the wall has crumbled over the cliff. The interior of the fort is featureless. Immediately outside the wall near the centre are traces of a rectangular bothy of a later period measuring c. 4.0m x 2.0m, and 30m S of this are three small stony mounds, apparently clearance heaps.

The name Dun Teadh probably applies to an inaccessible natural stack at NG 208 053, immediately W of the fort.

Visited by OS (A A) 1 June 1972.

(Location amended to NG 2090 0537 and classification to fort; structure; building (possible); mound; pottery; field clearance cairns).

This fort is situated on a broad promontory at the foot of the steep cliffs at the NW end of Canna. Its defences comprise a single wall cutting across the neck of the promontory on the SE, landward, side and elsewhere by the cliff-edge. There are also traces of a possible external ditch running out into the gullies on either side of the promontory. The wall, which is 41.5m long and 3m thick, is faced externally with massive boulders still standing up to 0.8m in height in two courses, while the inner face is built of smaller boulders in rough courses. An entrance 1.6m broad is located 15m from the SW end and the only features visible within the interior are two possible clearance cairns and traces of what may be a subrectangular building set against the inner face of the wall. Its wall has been reduced to little more than a line of stones enclosing an area measuring 10m by 2.7m. One sherd of pottery was recovered from a rabbit scrape at the junction between the wall of the building and the wall of the fort.

Set against the outer face of the fort wall to the NE of the entrance, there are the stone footings of another subrectangular structure. It measures 4.7m from ENE to WSW by 3m transversely, and appears to overlie an oval mound some 16m in length by 4m in breadth. A further three small clearance cairns lie some 30m to the S of the fort at the foot of the slope below the cliffs.

(Canna 660-2, 1016).

Visited by RCAHMS (SPH, ARG), 6 April 1995.

RCAHMS surveyed the fort at Dun Teadh, Canna on 11 April 1995 at a scale of 1:500 with plane-table and self-reducing alidade.

This fort is situated on a precipitous promontory formed as a wave-cut platform at the foot of the coastal cliffs at Garrisdale. Its defences comprise a single wall up to 3m in thickness, which has been drawn across the neck of the promontory on the SE over a distance of a little over 40m. Its outer face is composed of massive blocks and stands about 0.8m high in two course; the smaller boulders of the inner face have been laid in rough courses. Outside the wall there are traces of a possible ditch entering the gullies to either side, and the entrance lies slightly SW of the mid-point of the wall. The irregular interior, which measures about 130m from NE to SW by 80m transversely (0.78ha), is largely featureless, though there are traces of a rectangular building about 10m in length by 2.7m in breadth internally set against the inner face of the wall. A second smaller building is set against the outer face of the wall, overlying what are probably an earlier turf structure reduced to a mound some 16m in length, which has obscured the line of the possible ditch in this central sector.

Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 18 May 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC2687