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Dun Fhamhair

Fort (Iron Age)

Site Name Dun Fhamhair

Classification Fort (Iron Age)

Canmore ID 12377

Site Number NH44NE 7

NGR NH 48418 47067

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/12377

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Administrative Areas

  • Council Highland
  • Parish Kilmorack
  • Former Region Highland
  • Former District Inverness
  • Former County Inverness-shire

Archaeology Notes

NH44NE 7 4842 4707.

(NH 4842 4707) Dun Fhamhair (NR)

OS 6"map, (1959)

Dun Fhamhair, a fort, situated on a prominent shoulder with an easy approach from the NE. It is oval on plan measuring c. 43.0m N-S by c. 35.0m within a tumbled wall in which the lowest course of the outer face can be seen for most of the perimeter. Inner facing stones are evident in the SE giving a wall thickness at this point of 3.5m. The RCAHMS (Visited by RCAHMS to OS 1957) state that the entrance is in the NE, but this can no longer be seen. The interior is featureless.

A modern wall surrounds the fort and outside this a rampart and outer ditch bars the easy approach from the NE. The rampart averages c. 3.5m in width and c. 0.5m in height; the ditch is c. 3.0m in width and c. 0.5m in depth. At the NW end a few scattered stones suggest that the rampart continued to join the fort. In the middle of this outer defence a causeway across the ditch and a break in the bank is probably an original entrance.

Divorced survey at 1:10,000.

Visited by OS (R L) 7 April 1970; T D Wallace 1886

Activities

Field Visit (March 1979)

Dun Fhamhair NH 484 470 NH44NE 7

This fort measures about 43m by 35m within a wall about 3.5m thick; the entrance was probably on the NE.

RCAHMS 1979, visited March 1979

(Wallace 1886, 342)

Note (5 March 2015 - 31 May 2016)

This fort, which is enclosed within a modern dyke, is situated on the shoulder of a local summit along the high ground to the W of Beauly. Roughly oval on plan, it measures about 43m from N to S by 35m transversely (0.12ha) within a wall about 3.5m in thickness; the line of the inner face can be seen only on the SE, but the outer face can be traced around most of the circuit. The interior is featureless, though an apparently roofed deer observatory is shown on the NE side on the 1st edition OS 25-inch map (Inverness-shire 1875, sheet 2.14). Nothing can be seen of the entrance placed by Thomas Wallace (1886, 342), unless he was referring to that in an outer rampart and ditch that lies beyond the modern dyke, cutting off the easiest line of approach from the NE; this rampart is about 3.5m in thickness by 0.5m in height and its flanking ditch 3m in breadth by 0.5m in depth.

Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 31 May 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC2875

Note

Undated description within v2. of Marginal Land Survey typescripts.

References

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