Satellite Imagery
Satellite Imagery
HER: Comhairle nan Eilean Siar - Western Isles Sites and Monuments Record MWE21379 (None)
NMR: NL 58 SW 4 (21379)
SM: 927
NGR: NL 5485 8023
X: 54850 Y: 780230 (OSGB36)
This fort occupies a spectacular position on the promontory that projects beyond the precinct wall of the Barra Head lighthouse, perched some 190m above the sea. Its defences comprise a galleried wall up to 4.6m in thickness and about 25m in length, drawn in a gentle arc from the sheer cliff-edge on the N to where the ground falls away in a series of ledges on the S. Though apparently standing 3.2m in height at a squared terminal around the entrance at its N end, with a steeply battered outer face of neatly-pinned masonry, much of this is probably rebuilt, including the lintels of the entrance passage, though its N wall appears to retain a bar-hole and a door-check set 1.1m back from threshold stone on the line of the outer face. The inner end of the S wall of the passage is possibly original and the neatly built angle it preserves may be the E jamb of a doorway into a lower gallery that was still visible with some of its lintels in place in 1915, along with the E face of an upper gallery above it (RCAHMS 1928, 132-3, no.450); no more than a groove now remains to mark the gallery's course through the rubble, as the wall thins to a about 3.7m in thickness and peters out in a mound of stones on the S. The triangular interior measures about 40m from ENE to WSW by a maximum of 15m transversely (0.03ha), but its sunken character is almost certainly the result of quarrying in 1830-33 to provide stone for the lighthouse, which is perhaps also the source of so much of the reconstruction and restoration.
Citizen Science: ✗
Reliability of Data: Confirmed
Reliability of Interpretation: Confirmed
X: -852085 Y: 7716352 (EPSG: 3857)
Longitude: -7.654408285808347 Latitude: 56.785250228045065 (EPSG:4326)
Country: Scotland
Current County or Unitary Authority: Western Isles
Historic County: Inverness-shire
Current Parish/Community/Council/Townland: Barra
Interior is heavily quarried
| Extant | ✓ |
| Cropmark | ✗ |
| Likely Destroyed | ✓ |
None
| Woodland | ✗ |
| Commercial Forestry Plantation | ✗ |
| Parkland | ✗ |
| Pasture (Grazing) | ✗ |
| Arable | ✗ |
| Scrub/Bracken | ✗ |
| Bare Outcrop | ✗ |
| Heather/Moorland | ✓ |
| Heath | ✗ |
| Built-up | ✗ |
| Coastal Grassland | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
None
| Contour Fort | ✗ |
| Partial Contour Fort | ✗ |
| Promontory Fort | ✓ |
| Hillslope Fort | ✗ |
| Level Terrain Fort | ✗ |
| Marsh Fort | ✗ |
| Multiple Enclosure Fort | ✗ |
| Hilltop | ✗ |
| Coastal Promontory | ✓ |
| Inland Promontory | ✗ |
| Valley Bottom | ✗ |
| Knoll/Hillock/Outcrop | ✗ |
| Ridge | ✗ |
| Cliff/Plateau-edge/Scarp | ✗ |
| Hillslope | ✗ |
| Lowland | ✗ |
| Spur | ✗ |
Dominant Topographic Feature: None
| North | ✗ |
| Northeast | ✗ |
| East | ✗ |
| Southeast | ✗ |
| South | ✗ |
| Southwest | ✗ |
| West | ✗ |
| Northwest | ✗ |
| Level | ✓ |
Altitude: 190.0m
N/A
In the absence of excavation, there are neither stratified artefacts nor radiocarbon dates to provide a chronology for the defences.
Reliability: D - None
| Pre 1200BC | ✗ |
| 1200BC - 800BC | ✗ |
| 800BC - 400BC | ✗ |
| 400BC - AD50 | ✗ |
| AD50 - AD400 | ✗ |
| AD400 - AD 800 | ✗ |
| Post AD800 | ✗ |
| Unknown | ✓ |
| Pre Hillfort: | None |
| Post Hillfort: | Extensive quarrying of the interior and reconstruction of the wall |
Photographed by RCAHMS from the air in 2003 and 2011
| Earthwork Survey (1865): | Drawing of the wall elevation by Mary Carmichael of Lochmaddy c.1861-5 (RCAHMS DC25546; SAS 27) |
| 1st Identified Map Depiction (1878): | Named in Gothic type on the 1st edition OS 6-inch map (Inverness-shire 1880, sheet 70) |
| Earthwork Survey (1887): | Obtained from Norman Macpherson, a Commissioner of the lighthouse board, and initialled AAD (Anderson 1893, 344-5, figs 1-6; RCAHMS DC54467) |
| Other (1890): | Description by Captain F W Thomas published posthumously in 1890 (1890, 404) |
| Earthwork Survey (1915): | Plan and description (RCAHMS 1928, 132-3, no.450; RCAHMS IND 32/1) |
| Other (1934): | Scheduled |
| Other (1965): | Visited by the OS |
| Other (1988): | Description by Euan Mackie (2007) |
| Other (1992): | Description (Foster 1992; Branigan and Foster 2000, 133, BY17) |
| Other (2010): | Description by RCAHMS |
featureless apart from the large quarry for stone for the lighthouse
None
| None | ✓ |
| Spring | ✗ |
| Stream | ✗ |
| Pool | ✗ |
| Flush | ✗ |
| Well | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
None
| No Known Features | ✓ |
| Round Stone Structures | ✗ |
| Rectangular Stone Structures | ✗ |
| Curvilinear Platforms | ✗ |
| Other Roundhouse Evidence | ✗ |
| Pits | ✗ |
| Quarry Hollows | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
None
| No Known Excavation | ✓ |
| Pits | ✗ |
| Postholes | ✗ |
| Roundhouses | ✗ |
| Rectangular Structures | ✗ |
| Roads/Tracks | ✗ |
| Quarry Hollows | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
| Nothing Found | ✗ |
None
| No Known Geophysics | ✓ |
| Pits | ✗ |
| Roundhouses | ✗ |
| Rectangular Structures | ✗ |
| Roads/Tracks | ✗ |
| Quarry Hollows | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
| Nothing Found | ✗ |
None
| No Known Finds | ✓ |
| Pottery | ✗ |
| Metal | ✗ |
| Metalworking | ✗ |
| Human Bones | ✗ |
| Animal Bones | ✗ |
| Lithics | ✗ |
| Environmental | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
NO APPARENT FEATURES
| APs Not Checked | ✗ |
| None | ✓ |
| Roundhouses | ✗ |
| Rectangular Structures | ✗ |
| Pits | ✗ |
| Postholes | ✗ |
| Roads/Tracks | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
See main summary
| 1: | None |
| 2: | None |
Guard Chambers: ✗
Chevaux de Frise: ✗
| 1. Passage-way/Corridor (East): | Largely reconstructed, but probably true to its orginal position |
Single galleried wall across a promontory
| Area 1: | 0.03ha. |
| Total: | 0.03ha. |
Total Footprint Area: Noneha.
None
| ✗ | None |
| ✗ | None |
| NE Quadrant: | 1 |
| SE Quadrant: | 0 |
| SW Quadrant: | 0 |
| NW Quadrant: | 0 |
| Total: | 1 |
| Partial Univallate | ✓ |
| Univallate | ✗ |
| Partial Bivallate | ✗ |
| Bivallate | ✗ |
| Partial Multivallate | ✗ |
| Multivallate | ✗ |
| Unknown | ✗ |
| Partial Univallate | ✗ |
| Univallate | ✗ |
| Partial Bivallate | ✗ |
| Bivallate | ✗ |
| Partial Multivallate | ✗ |
| Multivallate | ✗ |
Galleries
| None | ✗ |
| Earthen Bank | ✗ |
| Stone Wall | ✓ |
| Rubble | ✗ |
| Wall-walk | ✗ |
| Evidence of Timber | ✗ |
| Vitrification | ✗ |
| Other Burning | ✗ |
| Palisade | ✗ |
| Counter Scarp Bank | ✗ |
| Berm | ✗ |
| Unfinished | ✗ |
| Other | ✓ |
None
| None | ✗ |
| Earthen Bank | ✗ |
| Stone Wall | ✗ |
| Murus Duplex | ✗ |
| Timber-framed | ✗ |
| Timber-laced | ✗ |
| Vitrification | ✗ |
| Other Burning | ✗ |
| Palisade | ✗ |
| Counter Scarp Bank | ✗ |
| Berm | ✗ |
| Unfinished | ✗ |
| No Known Excavation | ✓ |
| Other | ✗ |
| ✗ | None |
| ✗ | None |
Number of Ditches: None
| ✗ | None |
Anderson, J (1893) 'Notice of Dun Stron, Bernera, Barra Head, with plans'. Proc Soc Antiq Scot 27 (1892-3), 341-6
Branigan and Foster, K and P (2000) From Barra to Berneray: archaeological survey and excavation in the southern isles of the Outer Hebrides, Sheffield Environmental and Archaeological Research Campaign in the Hebrides volume 5. Sheffield University: Sheffield
Feachem, R (1963) A guide to prehistoric Scotland. Batsford: London (p 179-80)
Foster, P (1992) 'Berneray (Barra parish): survey'. Disc Exc Scot 1992, 88
MacKie, E W (2007) The Roundhouses, Brochs and Wheelhouses of Atlantic Scotland c.700 BC-AD 500: architecture and material culture, the Northern and Southern Mainland and the Western Islands, BAR British series 444(II), 444(1), 2 V. British Archaeological Reports: Oxford
RCAHMS (1928) The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments and Constructions of Scotland. Ninth report with inventory of monuments and constructions in the Outer Hebrides, Skye and the Small Isles. HMSO: Edinburgh
Thomas, F W L (1890) 'On the duns of the Outer Hebrides'. Archaeol Scot 5.3 (1890), 365-415
Atlas of Hillforts:
Wikidata:
This work is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
and should be cited as:
Lock, Gary and Ralston, Ian. 2024. Atlas of Hillforts of Britain and Ireland. Available at: https://hillforts.arch.ox.ac.uk
Document Version 1.1