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Canna, Dun Channa

Fort (Period Unassigned)

Site Name Canna, Dun Channa

Classification Fort (Period Unassigned)

Canmore ID 10764

Site Number NG20SW 1

NGR NG 2058 0478

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/10764

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

  • Council Highland
  • Parish Small Isles
  • Former Region Highland
  • Former District Lochaber
  • Former County Inverness-shire

Archaeology Notes ( - 1972)

NG20SW 1 2058 0478

(NG 206 048) Dun Channa (NAT)

OS 6" map, Inverness-shire, 2nd ed., (1903)

Dun Channa is an isolated stack of rock, which has been utilized as a dun by building a drystone wall (6 1/2' thick) on the edge of the landward side, where access is possible (RCAHMS 1928).

Several medieval foundations lie within the dun, and the simplicity of the entrance and the comparative thinness of the wall, suggest that this may possibly not be a prehistoric structure (R W Feachem 1963).

RCAHMS 1928; R W Feachem 1963.

(Location cited as NG 2060 0481). Dun Channa is a fort occupying an area measuring about 41.0m NW-SE by 33.0m. The wall (c 25.0m long) across the access averages about 2.0m in width increasing to 3.0m at the SE side of the central entrance.

The interior of the fort is covered with thick vegetation and the remains of the alleged "medieval foundations" are almost unintelligible apart from two D-shaped structures abutting the fort wall.

There are suggestions of other possible structures under the turf.

The roughly built nature of the outer face of the fort wall may indicate a late date, but whether it is contemporary with the internal structures is not possible to determine. The position is one of difficult access and considerable strength.

Visited by OS (I S S) 1 June 1972.

Activities

Field Visit (4 July 1925)

Dun Channa.

An isolated stack of columnar basalt lying 250 yards south of Garisdale Point, the most westerly part of Canna, has been utilised as a dun by building a drystone wall, 6 ½ feet thick, on the edge of the landward side, where access is possible, the stack being connected to the land by a narrow neck built up of tumbled rock, lying 12 to 15 feet beneath the summit, which can be gained only from a ladder. The entrance to the enclosure is 2 feet 1 0 inches daylight width and broadens internally to 4 feet 2 inches. On the eastern side of the enclosure are foundations of a house of three compartments, measuring over all 52 feet 8 inches by 30 ½ feet, the walls being 3 feet thick; on the western side of the enclosure are indefinite foundations of other structures. (Fig. 312.)

RCAHMS 1928, visited 4 July 1925.

OS map: Islands of Canna and Sanday (Invernessshire) lix.

Field Visit (1 June 1972)

(Location cited as NG 2060 0481). Dun Channa is a fort occupying an area measuring about 41.0m NW-SE by 33.0m. The wall (c 25.0m long) across the access averages about 2.0m in width increasing to 3.0m at the SE side of the central entrance.

The interior of the fort is covered with thick vegetation and the remains of the alleged "medieval foundations" are almost unintelligible apart from two D-shaped structures abutting the fort wall.

There are suggestions of other possible structures under the turf.

The roughly built nature of the outer face of the fort wall may indicate a late date, but whether it is contemporary with the internal structures is not possible to determine. The position is one of difficult access and considerable strength.

Visited by OS (I S S) 1 June 1972.

Field Visit (3 July 1994)

(Location amended to NG 2058 0478). This fort occupies a coastal stack at the western tip of Canna and is only accesible by way of a narrow spine of outcrop jutting out from the foot of the cliffs on the NE. Even here, however, the stack presents a vertical rock-face over 3m in height, and it is only possible to reach the top by scaling the ledges above a precipitous drop to the rocks on the shore below. The summit of the stack measures 35m from NW to SE by 30m transversely, and, is defended by a single wall extending along the cliff-edge the length of the NE side. At the entrance, immediately above the spine linking the stack to the shore, the wall draws back from the cliff edge, leaving a steeply sloping forecourt in front of the passageway. Here the wall has a maximum thickness of 1.7m, and it still stands to a height of 2.4m in fourteen courses immediately NE of the entrance. The passageway itself is 1.3m wide at its inner end, where the facing of its sides is up to 0.8m high. Immediately behind the wall, one to each side of the entrance, there are traces of two rectangular buildings beneath the deep tussocky grass; that to the NE measures 11.3m from NNW to SSE by 6.6m transversely overall, and that to the SW, 6.5m by 5.5m. The relationship of the buildings to the wall is not known, but in their present condition they have obscured the line of the inner face of the fort wall.

(Canna 1012).

Visited by RCAHMS (SPH, IMS), 3 July 1994.

Note (13 January 2015 - 30 May 2016)

This small fortification occupies the summit of an isolated stack, which is linked to the western tip of Canna at the foot of the coastal cliffs by a narrow spine of outcrop. Indeed, the access on the NE to the entrance is only gained by scaling a vertical face some 3m high, though this may be achieved relatively easily via ledges above a precipitous drop down to the shore below. Apart from these natural features, the defences comprise a single wall drawn along the landward face of the stack on the NE, which still presents an outer face standing 2.4m high in fourteen courses immediately to the NW of the centrally placed entrance. Here the wall attains a maximum thickness of 1.7m and is set back from the edge of the stack to leave a steeply sloping approach to the mouth of the passageway; the latter is 1.3m wide at its inner end, where the faces to either side still stand 0.8m high. The interior measures 35m from NW to SE by 30m transversely (0.1ha). The only features visible within the interior are two rectangular buildings. These are set to either side of the entrance, that on the NW measuring 11.3m by 6.6m overall, and the other 6.5m by 5.5m overall. Clothed in deep tussocky grass, they obscure the line of the inner face of the main wall and are likely to post-date it.

Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 30 May 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC2688

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