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Skye, Dun Merkadale
Dun (Prehistoric)
Site Name Skye, Dun Merkadale
Classification Dun (Prehistoric)
Canmore ID 11069
Site Number NG33SE 1
NGR NG 3898 3061
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/11069
- Council Highland
- Parish Bracadale
- Former Region Highland
- Former District Skye And Lochalsh
- Former County Inverness-shire
NG33SE 1 3898 3061.
NG 3898 3061 Dun Merkadalee (NR)
OS 6"map, Inverness-shire, 2nd ed., (1903)
.... Dun Merkadale, a dun sub-oval on plan, and measuring internally some 36ft NNW-SSE and about 30ft in width. The wall, built on the edge of a plateau, has disappeared round the flanks and S end, and even the section built across the plateau at the N end shows only as a shapeless mass of stone and earth 9ft wide and 4ft high. The entrance has been at the NW and is indicated by a few stones remaining in position on the left side. The roadway approaching the entrance slopes up the W side.
RCAHMS 1928.
Dun Merkadale is as described by RCAHMS except that its shape is sub-rectangular having rounded corners and slightly curved sides. To the N around the edge of the plateau, there are faint traces of a wall, probably an outwork.
Around the base of the rocks to the N and E there are a ruined house and about two shielings.
Visited by OS (C F W) 4 June 1961.
Field Visit (17 May 1915)
Dun Merkadale.
On the hillside above, and about 450 yards south of the junction of the road to Glen Brittle, at Merkadale, at an elevation of some 350 feet above sea-level, and overlooking the head of Loch Harport, which lies about ½ mile to the north, near the left bank of a small burn, is a flat-topped rocky eminence rising some 45 feet above the slope of the hill. Occupying the southern end of the plateau are the scanty remains of Dun Merkadale, a dun sub-oval on plan, and measuring internally some 36 feet from north-north-west to south-south-east and about 30 feet in width. The wall, built on the edge of the plateau, has disappeared round the flanks and southern end, and even the section built across the plateau at the northern end shows as only a shapeless mass of stone and earth 9 feet wide and 4 feet high. The entrance has been at the north-west, and is indicated by a few stones remaining in position on the left side. The roadway approaching the entrance slopes up the western side of the eminence, which is less rocky at this part.
RCAHMS 1928, visited 17 May 1915.
OS map: Skye xxxviii.
