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Kildonan Point

Fort (Period Unassigned)

Site Name Kildonan Point

Classification Fort (Period Unassigned)

Canmore ID 38740

Site Number NR72NE 12

NGR NR 7824 2715

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/38740

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
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Administrative Areas

  • Council Argyll And Bute
  • Parish Campbeltown
  • Former Region Strathclyde
  • Former District Argyll And Bute
  • Former County Argyll

Archaeology Notes

NR72NE 12 7824 2715.

(NR 782 271) Fort (NR)

OS 6" map, Argyllshire, 2nd ed., (1924)

On the rocky promontory of Kildonan Point, which rises to a height of 15m above the S shore of Kildonan Bay, there is a fort measuring internally 55m from NE to SW by about 64m transversely. No trace of any defences can now be seen on the SE, where a steep rocky face provides strong natural protection, but on the other side there is a single wall whose width, at the one point where both the inner and outer facing-stones are visible, is 4.0m. The outer face, considerable remains of which are still to be seen, lies 1.8m below the margin of the summit area and incorporates massive blocks of stone measuring as much as 1.4m by 0.6m.

The entrance is in the middle of the NE side of the fort, at the head of a natural gully 3.0m wide. A smaller gully several metres SE of the W angle is also used as an entrance at the present time, but it is clearly secondary since the wall debris continues across it.

The interior rises 9m from NW to SE and in the NW part, which has been cultivated, the stones cleared from the ground have been piled on to four adjacent outcrops of rock. The SE part of the interior is occupied by out-crops and intervening narrow stretches of grass. An Ordnance Survey triangulation station stands near the S angle of the fort on a low stony mound 4.3m in diameter.

RCAHMS 1971, visited 1960.

The fort is as described and planned by RCAHMS (1971).

Surveyed at 1:10 000.

Visited by OS (JB) 8 November 1977.

NR 7824 2715 Site identified as part of a coastal zone assessment survey.

M Cressey, S Badger, 2005.

Activities

Field Visit (1 August 1955)

Visited by RCAHMS.

Notebook p44-48.

Note (13 October 2014 - 23 May 2016)

This fort occupies the promontory forming the tip of Kildonan Point. While on the SE the interior descends into a broken rocky foreshore riven with gullies, elsewhere it is defended by a single wall up to 4m in thickness, which encloses a subrectangular area measuring about 64m from NW to SE by 55m transversely (0.37ha). Considerable portions of the massively constructed external face can be seen around the margins, set up to 1.8m below the lip of the promontory, and there is an entrance at the head of a gully midway along the NE side; the narrow gully that currently provides access through the NW side close to the N corner is not an original entrance. The rocky interior is largely featureless, apart from traces of more recent cultivation and stone clearance on the NW.

Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 23 May 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC2262

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