Accessibility

Font Size

100% 150% 200%

Background Colour

Default Contrast
Close Reset

Dun Chonallaich

Fort (Prehistoric), Gaming Board (Stone)(Early Medieval)

Site Name Dun Chonallaich

Classification Fort (Prehistoric), Gaming Board (Stone)(Early Medieval)

Canmore ID 22772

Site Number NM80SE 15

NGR NM 8544 0365

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/22772

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
Canmore Disclaimer. © Copyright and database right 2024.

Toggle Aerial | View on large map

Digital Images

Administrative Areas

  • Council Argyll And Bute
  • Parish Kilmartin
  • Former Region Strathclyde
  • Former District Argyll And Bute
  • Former County Argyll

Archaeology Notes

NM80SE 15 8544 0365.

(NM 8545 0366) Dun Chonallaich (NAT) Fort (NR).

OS 1:10,000 map, (1975)

This fort crowns a conspicious crag rising steeply from marsh on the south. Landslides on the south face have probably carried away walling and perhaps an access route. The summit of the crag is enclosed by a well-built faced wall which survives, especially on the east, to a maximum height of 6'. In the interior, a narrow, grassy, rocky ridge runs along the south side close to the wall and rising 10' or 12' above it. On the north side of the ridge are the remains of two contiguous circular structures measuring 20' and 24' in diameter respectively and with walls 6' thick. The smaller is partly dug out of the ridge and the consequent retaining wall still stands 2' to 3' high. A mass of ruin, 32' across lying on the flat top of a precipitous nose, which completes the fort to the east, may represent another similar structure. There are several outworks on the north.

Christison (1889) describes an access route from the SE which is barred, about 100' below what he thought was the ruined entrance, by a well-built wall 6' wide and several feet high. A mass of debris lay between the wall and this entrance at the time of his visit. Access is now from the north or north-east where, about 20' below the top, footholds have been cut in the rock. A flight of stone steps up the east face was recently built to facilitate access.

Just west of the fort, a ring of small inward pointing stones, 3' in diameter over a rubble-filled hollow 1' 6" deep with two large possible cover slabs suggest a storage pit. A collection of round pebbles, possibly sling stones, and a rotary quern were found. The quern has been placed by the marker cairn on the summit.

A hut is visible from the top lying on a spur to the east.

M Campbell and M Sandeman 1964; D Christison 1889.

This is a small fort measuring about 46 metres NE-SW by 20 metres transversely and is generally as described, although no trace was found of the 'storage pit' or of the rotary quern. No trace of outworks was found except for Christison's cross-wall some 100' below the summit on the east side.

The hut mentioned by Campbell and Sandeman (1964) is a later, sub-rectangular stock enclosure lying just below Christison's 'cross wall'.

Surveyed at 1:10 000 scale.

Visited by OS (W D J) 10 March 1070.

In the course of the survey of this Fort for the Inventory of Argyll a stone gaming-board, comparable to those from Buckquoy, Orkney, was discovered.

J N G Ritchie 1983.

The gaming-board was formed by scratching a series of intersecting straight lines upon the face of a stone, so as to form a number of rectangular boxes. Such boards may have been casually made, and of limited life.

C Earwood 1993.

The substantial pieces of timber that litter the summit of the hill were left during its use as a film set.

Information from Mrs M Fairbairn, Auchinellan per RCAHMS (RJCM), May 1996.

Activities

Field Visit (June 1983)

A rocky massive overlooking the Abhainn Airidhcheoduis 1.5km NE of Tibertich, is occupied by an irregularly shaped stone-walled fort and its outworks. Aligned NE and SW, the fort measures about 37m by 16m within a wall that follows the irregular outline of the summit area. Regrettably the monument has been subject to wanton destruction in recent times. Shortly before the Commission's visit, the SW end of the summit was severly disturbed by the construction of a stone-walled round-house for use as a film-set; shortly afterwards vandals destroyed a particularly fine stretch of the outer face to the SW of the main entrance, which had been recorded as standing to a height of 2m in nineteen courses. The wall evidently varied in thickness, attaining as much as 4.5m on the NW, but barely 1.5m on the S. The core material along the centre line of the wall appears to have subsided slightly, which may indicate the presence of a mural gallery. Hoever, it is only on the NE that an intramural feature can be seen and it is uncertain what purpose this short length of facing served, since it appears to be set at an angle to the line of the wall.

Much of the interior is occupied by a rock spine, which is surmounted by a modern cairn, but the NW half is relatively level and it contains, in addition to the modern round-house already mentioned and an S-shaped structure associated with the film-making, a number of ruined stone foundations. On the N there is a rectilinear building and between the modern round-house and this rectilinear building, there is a further structure, shown on the RCAHMS plan as an arc of walling, but its precise shape cannot now be determined without excavation. A stone gaming-board of Early Historic date was found in the copurse of the survey on the surface of the rubble of the fort wall at the point shown on the RCAHMS plan (x).

It seems probable that the heavy spread of stony debris that covers the slopes of the massif immediately below the summit conceals the presence of an outer work affording additional protection on the NE half of the perimeter. Access to the shelves forming the lower S portion of the massif was barred by a second series of outworks, traces of which survive now only on the E and W; the best-preserved sector is the southernmost portion of the former, where a massively built wall bars access to a lower shelf, but elsewhere only a low bank of stony rubble is visible with gaps indicating the position of entrances. A line of boulders blocking a small gully on the NE may have been intended to provide cover for one such entrance.

The small subrectangular structures whose ruined foundations can still be seen on the lower shelves to the SE appear to be of no great age.

Visited June 1983

RCAHMS 1988

Note (25 November 2014 - 18 May 2016)

Occupying a rocky hilltop, the defences of this fort comprise two elements: a single wall extending around the irregular summit area; and outworks blocking access on the SE, W and probably N flanks. The summit enclosure measures about 37m from ENE to WSW by 16m transversely (0.05ha) within a wall up to 4.5m in thickness, and before an act of vandalism the outer face adjacent to the entrance on the E stood 2m high in nineteen courses; numerous runs of outer face can be seen elsewhere and there are also traces of an intramural feature on the NE. The entrance passage cuts obliquely across the line of the wall on the E, its axis lying almost N and S. Much of the interior is taken up by a spine of rock outcrops surmounted by a marker cairn, but on the N side there are the footings of a rectangular building and an arc belonging to another structure, while at the SW end the replica of a stone-walled round-house was built for a film-set in 1983. A survey carried out by RCAHMS investigators in that year discovered an early medieval stone gaming board lying on the wall core on the NW. A rotary quern had been found in the rubble from the wall previously (Campbell and Sandeman 1962, 48-9). The RCAHMS investigators suggested that the scree of rubble below the NE end of the fort may hide the remains of an outer wall, and there are certainly walls on the E and W blocking access from these quarters to broad terraces below the inner enclosure on the SW and SE, though they do not appear to have been enclosed as such. Two lines can be distinguished on the W at the top and bottom respectively of a sloping terrace; there are gaps in both and this may well have been the original route up to the summit enclosure. At least two small rectangular buildings can be seen on a terrace on the SE flank, while outside the outer wall here there is also a rectangular animal pen.

Information from An Atlas of Hillforts of Great Britain and Ireland – 18 May 2016. Atlas of Hillforts SC2553

References

MyCanmore Image Contributions


Contribute an Image

MyCanmore Text Contributions