Skye, Dun Mor, Struanmore

Dun Mor, Struanmore.

Overlooking and some 500 yards north of Dun Beag (NG33NW 3), at an elevation of over 300 feet above sea-level, is a plateau rising about 50 feet above the surrounding moorland, with precipitous rocky sides for the greater part of its circumference, except on the north-east, from which direction it is approached by a slight ridge rising in a steep gradient. The summit of the hill is occupied by the ruins of Dun Mor, which is quadrilateral in shape, measuring internally about 175 feet from north-west to south-east, and 140 feet from north-east to south-west. The enceinte has been surrounded by a stone wall which, though almost obliterated, seems to have been 8 feet in thickness on the north, west and south where least artificial defence was necessary, but on the vulnerable north-east, where the tumbled remains are spread over a width of 25 or 30 feet, it appears to have been 13 or 14 feet in thickness and rises from 4 to 5 feet above the interior. The main entrance is an opening 6 feet 4 inches in width and 13 feet in length near the northern end, and on the south-east a pathway leads up the slope to what may have been a second but smaller entrance. Abutting on the inside of the wall in the eastern angle is a large-hut circle, hollow and damp in the interior, measuring some 30 to 37 feet in diameter, inside walls 6 feet in thickness. At a distance of some 35 to 40 feet from, and 10 to 15 feet lower than, the north-eastern wall there has been an outer wall of stone, which, though much destroyed, shows parts in position, and towards the southern end, which returns towards the main wall, it is 5 to 8 feet in thickness. The entrance to the annexe thus formed is obscure. Inside this return between the outer and inner walls, where there is a flat shelf on the slope, are two hut circles lying 3 feet apart, one circular measuring 7 feet in diameter and the other oval, with axes 19 feet and 13 feet internally, with a wall about 3 feet 9 inches thick rising 6 inches above the turf and impinging on the outer defence.

In the neighbourhood of the dun are numerous ruined buildings, enclosures and boundary walls apparently of much later date than the original structure, and probably built of stones removed from the rampart.

RCAHMS 1928, visited 11 June 1921.

OS map: Skye xxviii.

This small fort is situated on a rocky hillock girt with crags some 15m high on all sides except the NE. Here the remains of two walls can be seen, the inner of which has been carried round the whole circuit. Relatively massive on the NE, where it forms a band of debris up to 8m thick and rises about 1.2m above the level of the interior, the inner wall reduces to a thickness of perhaps no more than 2.4m elsewhere around the circuit, enclosing a roughly oval area measuring 53m from NNW to SSE by 42m transversely (0.18ha). There are entrances on the NNE and SE respectively, the passage of the former measuring 1.9m in width by 4m in length; the latter is rather narrower, but is accessed by a path climbing obliquely up the slope. While the SE entrance passes directly to the exterior, the NNE entrance presumably led out through the outwork, though no trace of an outer entrance was identified when the fort was surveyed in 1921. Extending along a terrace some 3m or 4m below the main wall, the outer wall on this side measures up to 2.4m in thickness and at its SE end turns W as if it had originally sprung from the inner. A large hut-circle some 10m in internal diameter lies on the E side of the interior, now forming a boggy hollow enclosed by a low wall. Other structures may have been inserted into the debris of the outer wall on the E.

Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 30 May 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC2700