Eilean Righ
Dun (Prehistoric)
Site Name Eilean Righ
Classification Dun (Prehistoric)
Alternative Name(s) Eilean Righ 2
Canmore ID 22858
Site Number NM80SW 6
NGR NM 8002 0146
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/22858
- Council Argyll And Bute
- Parish Kilmartin
- Former Region Strathclyde
- Former District Argyll And Bute
- Former County Argyll
NM80SW 6 8002 0146.
(NM 8010 0160) (visible on RAF air photograph CPE/Scot/UK 249: 4022-3)
A fort, 86' x 52' overall with a wall perhaps 5' thick lies SW of the farm-house on Eilean Righ with cliff to the W and sloping ground on other sides. The outer wall-face stands to 3'6" at the SW near the cliff. A small oval house, 22' by 14' with a wall 3'6" to 6' thick lies against the inside of the fort wall on the S. A cleft leads to the entrance on the NE of the fort.
M Campbell and M Sandeman 1964.
NM 8001 0144. On a rocky knoll to the SW of the farmhouse on Eilean Righ are the robbed remains of a sub-rectangular enclosure measuring 25.0m NE-SW x 16.0m NW-SE internally. It is defined by a rubble wall c. 2.0m thick, faced with boulders on the outside, on all but the NW side, where a cliff face provides the boundary. There is an entrance in the NE. In the SE of the enclosure is a later oval structure measuring 6.4m E-W x 5.0m N-S within boulder-faced rubble walls 1.5m - 2.0m thick, with an entrance in the NE.
The construction and situation of the larger feature tend to suggest that it is the remains of a dun.
Visited by OS (J P) 22 May 1970.
Field Visit (June 1983)
This dun occupies the summit of a flat-topped ridge to the SW of the house at the centre of Eilean Righ and about 800m SW of NM80SW 5. Roughly circular on plan, a shape largely dictated by the ridge, the dun is aligned NE and SW. The NW side has fallen away, but much of the basal course of the wall survives elsewhere, indicating that the dun measured 18m by 13m within a wall about 3m in thickness. The stones of the outer face are large irregular boulders, and the entrance has probably been the gap on the NE, where one possible outer corner-stone remains.
In the S angle of the dun wall there is an oval structure measuring 6m by 5m internally within a wall 0.5m thick; one slab of the entrance survives. Without excavation it is not possible to tell whether this structure is contemporary with the dun or not.
Visited June 1983
RCAHMS 1988
