Dun Iadain

NM 911 240. This fort (Fig. 34), 490 m SW of Kilbride farmhouse, occupies the summit of Dùn Iadain, an isolated round-topped hill, overlooking the E end of Glen Feochan from a height of about 110 m OD. The site, which commands extensive views to the E and W, is protected on all sides by steep grass-covered slopes.

Measuring internally about 57.6 m by 19'2 m, the fort has been defended by two boulder-faced rubble-cored walls, one of which is drawn round the somewhat irregular margin of the summit area, taking advantage wherever possible of low rocky scarps, as shown on the plan, while the other follows, in the greater part of its course, the outer edge of a level terrace lying 1 m to 2 m below the summit; the walls apparently converged at the S end of the fort, where a rock fall has removed all trace of the defences. The inner wall appears as a grass-grown stony scarp of varying height, in which no facing stones are now visible; it has been interrupted for an entrance on the SSE. The outer wall has been much more severely mutilated; for most of the E side, and for a short distance on the SW, it survives as a turf-covered band of core material 1.2 m in greatest width, but elsewhere it is reduced for the most part to a mere crest-line. On the NNW and NNE the terrace has been quarried to a depth of about 1 m to provide material for both walls. No trace of the outer defence can now be seen on the SSW, where it crossed the neck of a spur. The position of the entrance through the outer wall is indicated by a gap in the wall debris on the E.

The ground enclosed is steeply inclined, and it is noteworthy that it shows no signs of house-platforms (cf. Introduction, p. 18).

RCAHMS 1975, visited May 1967.

Surveyed with alidade and plane-table at 1mm:1ft. Redrawn in ink and published at the reduced scale of 1:1000 (RCAHMS 1975, fig. 34).

This fort occupies the summit of a rounded hillock overlooking the E end of Glen Feochan. Roughly oval on plan, the interior measures about 50m from NNE to SSW by 19m transversely, though the wall also takes in an additional strip of ground where the summit area extends out to a rock outcrop on the S. The inner of the two walls can be traced as a stony scarp around the margin of this area, while the outer follows the lip of a terrace between 1m and 2m lower down the flank of the hillock. Roughly concentric on the NW and NE, on the E the outer wall follows the terrace where its line diverges outwards. A gap in the outer wall here marks the entrance, forcing visitors to expose their righthand sides to approach the gap in the inner wall on the SE. The sloping interior of the inner enclosure is featureless, but around the northern end the terrace between them has been quarried to a depth of 1m, presumably to provide material for their construction.

Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 18 May 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC2596