Satellite Imagery
Satellite Imagery
HER: The West of Scotland Archaeology Service 141 (None)
NMR: NM 15 NE 1 (21547)
SM: None
NGR: NM 1836 5942
X: 118360 Y: 759420 (OSGB36)
This fort on the NW coast of Coll occupies a precipitous promontory which is separated from the mainland along its NE flank by a deep gully. The area enclosed is roughly square, measuring about 80m across (0.6ha), taking in a rocky boss at the SE end, a steep slope dropping into the gully on the NE, and a series of rocky terraces dropping down to the sea on the NW. The main defence comprises a thick wall with a long run of the outer face visible on the crest of the boss on the SE, where there is also an entrance, beyond which there is a short length of an outer wall standing about 1m high in four courses. Traces of a wall are also visible along the edge of the cliff on the SW, while access from the bottom of the gully on the NE is blocked by another length of the wall set at the foot of the slope; in one place its outer face still stands 1.2m high in six courses. The only features visible within the interior are two conjoined sub-circular huts on the boss, the larger measuring about 4.6m by 3.7m within its footings, which appear to have been constructed with material robbed from the adjacent wall.
Citizen Science: ✗
Reliability of Data: Confirmed
Reliability of Interpretation: Confirmed
X: -734226 Y: 7687225 (EPSG: 3857)
Longitude: -6.5956668860756595 Latitude: 56.64164916510138 (EPSG:4326)
Country: Scotland
Current County or Unitary Authority: Argyll & Bute
Historic County: Argyll
Current Parish/Community/Council/Townland: Coll
None
| 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: 52.0m
N/A
Hammerstones and coarse pottery found here by Erskine Beveridge (1903, 13). 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: | None |
Photographed from the air by RCAHMS in 1997
| 1st Identified Written Reference (1900): | Description and photographs by Erskine Beveridge 1896-1901 (1903, 12-13) |
| Earthwork Survey (1959): | Plan (RCAHMS AGD 575/2) |
| 1st Identified Map Depiction (1972): | Surveyed at 1:2500 by the OS |
| Earthwork Survey (1975): | Plan and description (RCAHMS 1980, 77, no.134, fig 60; RCAHMS AGD 575/1) |
Featureless apart from two later sub-circular huts
None
| None | ✓ |
| Spring | ✗ |
| Stream | ✗ |
| Pool | ✗ |
| Flush | ✗ |
| Well | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
Two conjoined sub-circular huts
| 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 | ✗ |
Hammerstones and coarse pottery found here by Erskine Beveridge (1903, 13)
| No Known Finds | ✗ |
| Pottery | ✓ |
| Metal | ✗ |
| Metalworking | ✗ |
| Human Bones | ✗ |
| Animal Bones | ✗ |
| Lithics | ✓ |
| Environmental | ✗ |
| Other | ✗ |
Two conjoined sub-circular huts
| APs Not Checked | ✗ |
| None | ✗ |
| Roundhouses | ✗ |
| Rectangular Structures | ✗ |
| Pits | ✗ |
| Postholes | ✗ |
| Roads/Tracks | ✗ |
| Other | ✓ |
See main summary
| 1: | Discontinuous circuit |
| 2: | None |
Guard Chambers: ✗
Chevaux de Frise: ✗
| 1. Simple Gap (South east): | None |
Traces of single wall along the NE and SW margins of a promontory and two walls on the SE
| Area 1: | 0.62ha. |
| Total: | 0.62ha. |
Total Footprint Area: 0.64ha.
None
| ✗ | None |
| ✗ | None |
| NE Quadrant: | 1 |
| SE Quadrant: | 2 |
| SW Quadrant: | 1 |
| NW Quadrant: | 0 |
| Total: | 2 |
| Partial Univallate | ✓ |
| Univallate | ✗ |
| Partial Bivallate | ✓ |
| Bivallate | ✗ |
| Partial Multivallate | ✗ |
| Multivallate | ✗ |
| Unknown | ✗ |
| Partial Univallate | ✗ |
| Univallate | ✗ |
| Partial Bivallate | ✗ |
| Bivallate | ✗ |
| Partial Multivallate | ✗ |
| Multivallate | ✗ |
None
| 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 |
Beveridge, E (1903) Coll and Tiree: their prehistoric forts and ecclesiastical antiquities with notices of ancient remains in the Treshnish Isles. Edinburgh
RCAHMS (1980) The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland. Argyll: an inventory of the monuments volume 3: Mull, Tiree, Coll and Northern Argyll (excluding the early medieval and later monuments of Iona). HMSO: Edinburgh
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