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Barr Na Cour

Galleried Dun (Iron Age)

Site Name Barr Na Cour

Classification Galleried Dun (Iron Age)

Canmore ID 38978

Site Number NR76SE 2

NGR NR 7824 6145

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/38978

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

  • Council Argyll And Bute
  • Parish South Knapdale
  • Former Region Strathclyde
  • Former District Argyll And Bute
  • Former County Argyll

Archaeology Notes ( - 1977)

NR76SE 2 7824 6145.

(NR 7824 6145) Fort (NR)

OS 6" map, (1924)

Dun, Barr na Cour: An irregular oval dun, 65' x 40', occupies the summit of a rocky peak, bordered with precipices save to NE. It is bounded by a well-built wall, most of which has slid down the hill or been removed except at the NE end. Here both inner and outer faces remain, giving a wall thickness of 11'. Also, the NW side of an entrance passage is visible here; 3'9" from its inner end is a 2'4" wide gap that may have led to a guard cell. 8'6" from the outer corner of the passage seems to be the corresponding corner of the SE side of the passage; it has been disturbed or contracted in antiquity. There is a 7'6" thick outer rampart lower down the slope of the crag, 20' NE of the dun. The entrance, 10' wide, is in line with that of the dun. From this entrance, it curves back on either side towards the SW as if to join the wall of the dun, but it disappears when it reaches the precipitous flanks of the peak.

Information from RCAHMS Ms, visited 1942.

The remains of a galleried dun, generally as described by RCAHMS. The dun wall on the NE stands 1.1m high and the outwork wall, 1.3m high. Surveyed at 1:10,000.

Visited by OS (D W R) 27 June 1973.

This dun survives for the most part as a narrow, heather-covered band of stone, except in the NE where it is generally as described in the previous information. The details of the entrance passage and possible cell are not readily apparent, being obscured by vegetation and tumbled stone. A short stretch of walling near the entrance appears to have been partially rebuilt in modern times.

Surveyed at 1/10,000.

Visited by OS (B S) 9 March 1977.

Activities

Field Visit (21 September 1942)

This site was included within the RCAHMS Emergency Survey (1942-3), an unpublished rescue project. Site descriptions, organised by county, vary from short notes to lengthy and full descriptions and are available to view online with contemporary sketches and photographs. The original typescripts, manuscripts, notebooks and photographs can also be consulted in the RCAHMS Search Room.

Information from RCAHMS (GFG) 10 December 2014.

Field Visit (May 1982)

This dun and its outwork occupy the summit of an isolated rocky knoll 700m W of Dunmore Home Farm and within about 600m of the NW shore of West Loch Tarbert (Campbell and Sandeman 1964).

The dun measures 14m by 10m internally, but the wall has been severely robbed except at the NE end, where stretches of both inner and outer facing-stones remain, the outer still standing to a height of 1.1m in six courses. The entrance is on the NE, and several facing-stones of each of the side-walls of the passage remain in position; a short stretch of relatively recent walling now partly obstructs the passage.

The outwork, situated on a terrace some 2m below the level of the interior of the dun, consists of a wall, which survives to a height of 1.3m in six courses on the SSE; the outer angle of the wall is well preserved on the N, but little now remains on the NW. The entrance in on the NE, in line with that of the dun, and the outer corner-stone and part of the NW side-wall of the passage remain in position.

Visited May 1982

RCAHMS 1988

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