Tiree, Balephetrish, An Dun

NM04NW 13 0134 4803.

(NM 0134 4803) An Dun (NR)

OS 1:10000 map

Dun, An Dun: This dun is situated about 600m N of Balephetrish farmhouse, on the summit of a rocky coastal knoll which rises to a height of 12m above the seashore on the N, but not more than 3m above the level of adjacent ground on the landward side. It is roughly circular on plan and measures 8.3m in average diameter within a stony wall about 3.5m thick, which has been reduced by stone-robbing to a grass-covered bank of stony debris nowhere more than 1m high a number of inner and outer facing-stones have survived in situ, as shown on the plan. On the NW, where the wall has been carried across a transverse rocky spur, and additional, stability was therefore required, a stretch of an internal, outward-facing revetment can be seen in the well-core, and a shallow trench visible in the heart of core material on the NE may be all that is left of another stretch. The position of the entrance is unknown, and the interior, apart from an irregularly-shaped shallow depression in the S half, is featureless.

The dun has been further protected by an outwork in the form of a dry-stone wall, which has been drawn, for much of its course, along the crest of the low cliffs on the E and S, to abut against the dun wall on the SW. The outwork has been severely denuded and survives as an intermittent spread of grass-covered core material varying from about 0.6 to 2.4 m in thickness. The entrance probably lay somewhere in the wide gap on the SE.

RCAHMS 1980, visited 1974; E Beveridge 1903.

Revised at 1:10560 scale.

Visited by OS (R D) 27 June 1972.

Some eighty sherds of Iron Age pottery were found in a disturbed area in the centre of this dun in 1973.

D MacKinnon 1973.