Skye, Dun Borve

Dun Borve, Borve.

About 3 miles north-west of Portree on a rocky eminence projecting from the steep south-western slope of Pein Borve, ¼ mile east of the nearest house in the township of Borve, is a dun of the same name on the 500 feet contour line. The plateau on the height measures about 50 yards from north-east to south-west and about 30 yards across, and rises from 10 to 15 feet above the general slope of the hill, except towards the west where there is a steep grassy slope by which it is approached. It has been surrounded by a stone wall now almost gone except on the northern quadrant, where the outer face is still traceable, one portion showing a face of building 3 feet high. There have been two entrances through this outer defence, from the west and from the north-north-east, both about 3 feet 6 inches wide. On the highest part of the plateau a large heap of stones, about 70 feet in diameter and 10 feet in height, is all that is left of a circular building. A short section of the outer face showing little more than one course of good drystone building is seen to the north, and a greater length round the eastern arc. From these the external diameter of the structure is seen to be 57 feet. No trace of the entrance or the inner face of the wall can be seen.

From the dimensions ascertained, the sinking of the heart of the wall suggesting a gallery, and the large mass of building material, there is considerable justification for believing that this may have been a broch.

RCAHMS 1928, visited 21 May 1914 ; 28 May 1921.

OS map: Skye xxiii.

NG44 1 DUN BORVE 2

NG/4591 4772

Probable broch in Snizort. Skye, standing on a flat-topped rocky knoll about 153m (500 ft) above sea level. It consists of a large heap of stones, apparently mainly undisturbed [4], about 21m (70 ft) across and 3.05m (10 ft) high. The broch may stand up to 2m high below the rubble [4]. Two sections of the outer wallface on the south side suggest that the building had an overall diameter of 17.4m (57 ft); a short length of the inner wall is also visible, indicating a thickness of 3.8m (or 3.7-4.1m [4]) and an internal diameter of 11.6m or 10.0m [4, plan]. The position of the entrance is not apparent.

An outer stone wall runs round the edge of the knoll and has two entrances, both 1.07m (3 ft 6 in) wide on the north- west and north-north-east. A second wall can be traced outside the first on the north side, about 5m further out, and beyond this is a rock-cut ditch with an external rampart which were not noted before 1985 [4, plan]. There are faint traces of walling on the west side, between the broch and the outer wall.

Sources: 1. NMRS site no. NG 44 NE 2: 2. RCAHMS 1928, 196-97, no 620: 3. MacSween 1984-85, 44, no. 21 and fig. 21: 4. Swanson (ms) 1985, 828-30 and plan.

E W MacKie 2007

Situated on a flat-topped hillock that rises abruptly between 3m and 5m above the surrounding moorland E of Borve, this fortification is traditionally identified as the outwork to a broch. The broch has been reduced largely to a mound of rubble in which a run of outer face and a possible gallery can be identified on the E. The supposed outwork comprises the remains of a heavily robbed wall extending around the margin of the hillock to enclose an oval area measuring about 38m from NE to SW by 27m transversely (0.08ha); there are entrances on the W and NE. Since RCAHMS investigators first described the site it has been included in several other studies, one of which suggested that there was an outer wall on the N, and beyond it a rock-cut ditch with an external rampart (Swanson 1988, 828-30). There is no evidence to confirm that these outer defences are outworks to the broch rather than the remains of a free-standing fortification.

Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 31 May 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC2729