Islay, Traigh Machir
Dun (Later Prehistoric)
Site Name Islay, Traigh Machir
Classification Dun (Later Prehistoric)
Canmore ID 37445
Site Number NR26SW 2
NGR NR 2056 6209
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/37445
- Council Argyll And Bute
- Parish Kilchoman
- Former Region Strathclyde
- Former District Argyll And Bute
- Former County Argyll
NR26SW 2 2056 6209.
(NR 2055 6210) Dun Neadean, the fort of nests (Newall 1962) is a dun (information from RCAHMS) situated on a small rocky knoll above the sea. It is much destroyed but its overall measurements appear to have been 78ft N-S by 68ft E-W. Traces of a gallery, 3ft wide, are visible for a distance of 35ft-40ft on the S, where the outside wall is 4-5ft thick but the inner wall-face is now here visible. The walls are of coursed masonry a few courses in maximum height.
S Piggott and C M Piggott 1948; F Newall 1962.
The wasted remains of a dun measuring 20.0m NW-SE by 15.0m overall.
A short stretch of walling composed of small stone and standing two courses high survives on the SE side. There is much small stone scattered upon the site but there is no trace of a gallery.
Surveyed at 1:10 000.
Visited by OS (B S) 8 May 1978.
Field Visit (July 1975)
NR 205 620. A severely denuded dun occupies the summit of a low rocky knoll (9m OD) situated at the s end of Traigh Mhachair, immediately w of the old track leading from Kilchoman to Kilchiaran and approximately 1.5 km SW of Kilchoman Church (RCAHMS 1984, No. 366).
Roughly subrectangular on plan, it measures about 20m by 13m within a stone wall now reduced to little more than a grass-grown band of core material in which a few short stretches of outer facing-stones and a single stone of the inner face survive in position. The wall appears to have been about 3.5 m in average thickness, and there are no visible traces of the intramural gallery noted in a previous survey.' The entrance was probably situated on the E, where the scatter of debris is appreciably slighter. Apart from a small enclosure of relatively recent date in the SE portion, the interior is level and featureless.
Visited July 1975
RCAHMS 1984
Measured Survey (1975)
RCAHMS surveyed the dun at Traigh Mhacair in 1975 at 1:400 using plane-table and self-reducing alidade. The plan was redrawn in ink and published at a reduced size (RCAHMS 1984, fig. 123B).
