Duchary Rock

29. Fort, Duchary Rock. From Kilmain, a crofter township 2 m. W. of Brora, an old peat road leads NW. into the deer forest for nearly 2 m. To the K of this road near its termination rises abruptly a massive rock, precipitous on the E. and W., with a steep slope at the S. end, and a comparatively easy approach from the NW. It bears the name of the Duchary Rock. The level summit, where not defended by nature, has been strongly fortified by a wall. This wall at the N. or NW. end is 12' in thickness, in places 3' high, and well built of flat stones. It is pierced towards the NW. by an entrance passage 6' wide between the faces of the. opposing walls. The wall forming the W. side of the entrance passage is faced with two large fiat slabs apparently in situ. Some 14' outside the wall at this entrance are the foundations of an outer wall some 7' thick seeming to run from a point on the main wall about 10' E. of the opening and to meet it again at the edge of the steep slope 80' or 100' to westward, thus covering the entrance. Between the steep cliffs at the S. end is another wall some 70' in length and 10' thick through which is an entrance 4' wide. On the W. side of it is an indication of a chamber in the wall. The total length of the interior is some 260 yards, and the average width about 60 yards. The immense mass of debris indicates that the height of the walls was considerable.

Some 30' below the outer wall at the SE. is a natural rock shelter, the covered area measuring about 12' x 17'.

In the rocks facing eastwards some 100 yards NE. of the NW. entrance under a large rock is the entrance to an underground passage apparently natural. At its commencement it is about 2' wide and 3' high. It passes inwards in a southerly direction for about 13', then, turning sharply to the right, runs onward for 18' or 20' further with a width of some 15".

OS 6-inch map: Sutherland Sheet xcvii. (unnoted).

RCAHMS 1911, visited (AOC) 30th September 1909.

A finely sited fort with an impressive, though tumbled, stone rampart, set high up in open moorland with views to the north and out to sea. The fort occupies a flat-topped ridge some 300m long, with steep precipices on either side. The easier approaches at the north and south ends are each defended by a single stone wall, originally nearly 4m thick but now tumbled. Large blocks and slabs as well as smaller ones were used in the construction of both ramparts. These have unfortunately been considerably disturbed by shepherds making sheep shelters among the tumbled stone. The shorter southeast rampart makes some use of natural rock outcrops in its layout. There is a narrow entrance near the centre,unusual in that it is only 1.3m wide. Perhaps it was a postern gate which could admit people but not carts or sledges.

The longer northern rampart cuts off the ridge from the hills behind. Parts of the other face of this rampart are exposed among the general rumble. About the centre of the rampart is an entrance nearly 5m wide, now partly blocked with fallen stones. Some very large stone slabs line the entrance passage, and the wall-face east of the entrance is constructed of particularly massive blocks. There are some straight building-joints crossing the line of the wall; it has been suggested that these represent further blocked entrances, but it seems more likely that they are simply a local building trait, also to be seen in the apparently unfinished fort at Cnoc an Duin, Ross and Cromarty (NH 696768).

At its east end the northern rampart runs into a well defined precipice. To the west, it continues as a slighter feature sorne way alorig the west side of the fort where the precipice is less pronounced.

Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: The Highlands’, (1995).

Duchary Rock, a rocky spur high up on the SW flank of Strath Brora, provides a spectacular setting for one of the larger forts in northern Scotland, with a cliff along the E margin and low crags dropping into steep rocky slopes elsewhere on the SW and to a lesser extent the SE end. The principal defence is a single wall barring access from the NW, where it measures 3.6m in thickness and still stands almost 1m in height, though the spread of tumbled rubble is up to 12m broad; an outer wall noted in by Alexander Curle in 1909 is probably part of this tumble (RCAHMS 1911, 11-12, no.29). A second wall cuts across the SE end of the spur to create a pear-shaped enclosure measuring 290m in length and contracting from a maximum of 110m in breadth on the NW to no more than 50m on the SE (2.3ha). The main entrance is on the NW and measures 1.8m in width and is lined with upright slabs. A second entrance on the SE is narrower, measuring about 1.2m wide, and lined with laid masonry; two upright slabs were noted in 1990 by Joanna Close-Brooks roughly halfway along the passage, and she identified a possible bar-hole slot in the NE face adjacent to one of them. Both these entrances are currently blocked with tumbled stones, but in the NW end A H A Hogg also noted up to four through joints in the thickness of the wall, two lying on the W of the entrance and another two on the E (1975, 194-5); those on the W also incorporate upright slabs, and give the impression that they are the sides of an entrance passage, which has been blocked with neatly laid masonry, and Hogg speculated that the others may be further entrances, which would amount to no fewer than four in this end. The peat-covered interior is featureless.

Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 18 October 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC2786