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Dun Haunn, Mull

Dun (Period Unassigned)

Site Name Dun Haunn, Mull

Classification Dun (Period Unassigned)

Alternative Name(s) Treshnish

Canmore ID 21809

Site Number NM34NW 1

NGR NM 3343 4749

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/21809

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

  • Council Argyll And Bute
  • Parish Kilninian And Kilmore
  • Former Region Strathclyde
  • Former District Argyll And Bute
  • Former County Argyll

Archaeology Notes

NM34NW 1 3343 4749

Not to be confused with the fort of the same name, for which see NM34NW 2.

(NM 3343 4750) Dun (NR)

OS 1:10000 map (1976)

Dun, Dun Haunn: Situated in an exceptionally strong position on the SW end of a coastal promontory about 200m NNE of the headland known as Dun Haunn, there are the wasted remains of a dun and its outworks (see plan). The summit of the rocky boss occupied by the main work rises only 5.5m above the level of the promontory on the NE, but it is protected on all other sides by sheer or overhanging precipices 40m high.

The dun measures 10.5m by about 7.5m within a dry-stone wall drawn round the margin of the summit area. No trace of the wall survives on the W, where it has presumably collapsed over the edge of the cliff, but elsewhere it appears as a grass-grown band of stony debris, in which several stretches of outer facing-stones, but no stones of the inner face, can be seen. The site of the entrance is not absolutely certain, but it may be indicated by the slight depression in the wall core on the E, near the head of a natural inclined ramp that gives relatively easy access to the summit from the promontory.

Additional protection has been provided by two outer walls. The first, now largely reduced to a mere scatter of core material and partly overlain by a recent boundary-wall, follows the outer edge of the ramp already mentioned; after a short gap, probably the site of an original entrance, it continues towards the edge of the cliffs on the SE side of the promontory. The second, surviving as a stony scarp 1.4 m high in which a few massive outer facing-stones are still visible, has been drawn in an irregular arc from the cliff edge N of the dun to the base of the rocky boss. Immediately outside the second outwork there are the ruined foundations of a sub-rectangular enclosure of recent date.

RCAHMS 1980, visited 1974

Surveyed at 1:10,000.

Visited by OS (DWR) 22 April 1972.

Scheduled as Dunn [Dun] Haunn, dun.

Information from Historic Scotland, scheduling document dated 14 January 2003.

Activities

Note (10 November 2014 - 31 May 2016)

Dun Haunn comprises two elements: an inner dun occupying a boss at the seaward end of this promontory; and outer works that cut across its neck. The inner dun now comprises a semi-circular band of rubble with several visible runs of outer facing stones, which encloses an area no more than 10.5m across. The outer works would certainly have enhanced the defences of the dun, enclosing a rather larger area measuring about 26m from NE to SW by a maximum of 20m transversely. One blocks access along the SE margin of the promontory and mounts onto the boss occupied by the dun itself, and the other links the foot of the boss to the cliff edge on the W. Whether they ever formed an independent enclosure is not known, but the natural strength of the promontory is such, flanked by cliffs some 40m high, that it would have been ideally suited to be adapted for a promontory fortification. The entrance through the outer works was along the SE margin of the promontory.

Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 31 May 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC2503

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