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Dun A' Chliabhain

Fort (Prehistoric)

Site Name Dun A' Chliabhain

Classification Fort (Prehistoric)

Canmore ID 12376

Site Number NH44NE 6

NGR NH 47701 46069

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/12376

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
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Administrative Areas

  • Council Highland
  • Parish Kilmorack
  • Former Region Highland
  • Former District Inverness
  • Former County Inverness-shire

Archaeology Notes

NH44NE 6 4770 4606.

(NH 4770 4606) Dun a' Chliabhain (NAT) Fort (NR)

OS 6"map, (1957)

Dun a' Chliabhain, a fort, occupies a steep-sided rocky boss. It is 77 ft by 48 ft within a stone wall up to 12 ft thick, with an entrance on the E. An outer wall covers this in the NE (2). Wallace gives the wall thick- ness as 6 ft 6 ins and adds that the S side is defended by a 5 ft broad ditch, gradually becoming wider towards the SE.

R W Feachem 1963; T D Wallace 1921

Dun a' Chliabhain, a fort, is situated on the SW extremity of a ridge which protrudes SW from the higher ground above Drumindorsair; the NW, SW and SE flanks of the ridge are steep and in parts precipitous, but the approach from the NE is gradual.

Sub-oval on plan, the fort measures 23.5 m NW-SE by about 11.0 m within a wall averaging 3.6 m in thickness. Inner and outer wall faces, to a maximum height of three courses, can be traced amid tumble in all but the NW arc where the wall has slipped over the cliff. A shooting butt has been built into the wall in the S. The entrance passage, in the E, measures 3.8 m in length by 2.2 m in width; it is reduced to its lowest two courses. The interior of the fort is featureless.

The wall barring the easiest approach from the NE survives as a discontinuous line of outer facing-stones with three inner facing-stones evident at the S end giving a wall thickness of 2.2 m.

Outside the fort in the SW is a stony bank, about 1.5 m wide and 0.3 m high, with an internal ditch some 1.5 m wide and 0.3 m deep, which terminates on level ground at the SE end. It is possible that this is an unfinished outer defence.

Outside the bank are the vestiges of another wall, of uncertain purpose.

Planned at 1/1250.

Visited by OS (R L) 2 April 1970

Dun a' Chliabhain: This oval dun measures about 21.5 m by 11 m within a wall about 3.6 m thick, with an entrance on the E. The outer wall recorded by Feachem (R W Feachem 1963) does not appear to form part of the defences.

This is a dun and is as described in the previous field report, but the 'uncertain wall' across the SW approach is an outwork.

RCAHMS 1979

Activities

Field Visit (31 August 1943)

This site was included within the RCAHMS Emergency Survey (1942-3), an unpublished rescue project. Site descriptions, organised by county, vary from short notes to lengthy and full descriptions and are available to view online with contemporary sketches and photographs. The original typescripts, manuscripts, notebooks and photographs can also be consulted in the RCAHMS Search Room.

Information from RCAHMS (GFG) 10 December 2014.

Field Visit (March 1979)

Dun a' Chliabhain NH 477 460 NH44NE 6

This oval dun measures about 21.5m by 11 m within a wall about 3.6m thick, with an entrance on the E. An outer wall recorded by Feachem does not appear to form part of the defences.

RCAHMS 1979, visited March 1979

(Wallace 1886, 342; Feachem 1977, 127-8)

Note

Undated description within v2. of Marginal Land Survey typescripts.

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