Tiree, Dun Balephetrish

NM04NW 12 0150 4729.

(NM 0150 4729) Dun Balephetrish (NAT) Fort (NR) (remains of)

OS 1:10,000 map, (1976)

Fort, Dun Balephetrish: This fort occupies the summit of a rocky knoll 190m SE of Balephetrish House. The NW part has been destroyed by a quarry, now disused, and what remains of the enclosed area measures about 40m from NE to SW by 28m transversely. The defences consist of a single stone wall, which has been reduced to a band of rubble measuring about 2m in average thickness. No inner facing-stones can be seen, but on the E there are three short stretches of outer face. Immediately behind the wall on the S there are a number of slight scoops which may have been quarried to provide material for the core. A natural gully which breaches the line of the wall on the N was probably used as the entrance. The interior is level and turf-covered, but has been disturbed, possibly when the quarry was in operation, and the only features visible are a modern stone-faced well-chamber (named 'Tobar an Duin' on OS 1:10,000 map, {1976}) and a flag-pole stance.

Beveridge (E Beveridge 1903) notes fragments of pottery and a fragment of flint on the slopes to the NE of the fort, and Iron Age sherds from here were donated to the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS) in 1957-8 by Mrs E Gibb, Wadhurst, Sussex.

RCAHMS 1980, visited 1974; E Beveridge 1903; Proc Soc Antiq Scot 1960.

Resurveyed at 1:2500.

Visited by OS (R D) 27 June 1972.