Dun Struan Beag
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Property in Care no: 120 Designations: Scheduled Monument (SM90325) Taken into State care: 1980 (Guardianship) Last reviewed: 2016 HISTORIC ENVIRONMENT SCOTLAND STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE DUN STRUAN BEAG We continually revise our Statements of Significance, so they may vary in length, format and level of detail. While every effort is made to keep them up to date, they should not be considered a definitive or final assessment of our properties. Historic Environment Scotland – Scottish Charity No. SC045925 Principal Office: Longmore House, Salisbury Place, Edinburgh EH9 1SH Historic Environment Scotland – Scottish Charity No. SC045925 Principal Office: Longmore House, Salisbury Place, Edinburgh EH9 1SH HISTORIC ENVIRONMENT SCOTLAND STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE DUN STRUAN BEAG (KNOWN AS DUN BEAG) CONTENTS 1 Summary 2 1.1 Introduction 2 1.2 Statement of significance 3 2 Assessment of values 4 2.1 Background 4 2.2 Evidential values 6 2.3 Historical values 7 2.4 Architectural and artistic values 10 2.5 Landscape and aesthetic values 11 2.6 Natural heritage values 11 2.7 Contemporary/use values 11 3 Major gaps in understanding 12 4 Associated properties 15 5 Keywords 16 Bibliography 16 APPENDICES Appendix 1: Timeline 18 Appendix 2: Images 20 Historic Environment Scotland – Scottish Charity No. SC045925 Principal Office: Longmore House, Salisbury Place, Edinburgh EH9 1SH 1 1 Summary 1.1 Introduction Dun Beag (the small fort) is the remains of a drystone built Iron Age broch. From the excavated artefacts, its main period of use probably dates to the last two centuries BC and into the early centuries AD.1 It is prominently sited on a rocky knoll overlooking Loch Bracadale, near the village of Struan on the west coast of Skye. The external diameter at ground level is 18.6 metres, the diameter of the courtyard is 10.7 metres and the walls survive to around 1.8 metres high (internal wall-face).2 The interior has been excavated to bedrock so the ground-plan is clear and many of the common features of west-coast brochs are visible. The entrance to the broch is in the south-east sector of the building. A pair of door checks indicate the original position of the door and beyond the door checks is a passage leading into the interior. Three doorways lead off the central space. Just to the north of the entrance passage is a doorway leading into a corbelled cell, and to the south of the entrance passage is a doorway leading to a corbelled cell and to the base of a stair winding up between the external and internal skins of the wall. Almost opposite the entrance passage is the entrance to a ground-level gallery. The site was taken into care in 1980. It is unstaffed and accessed from a car park downslope. The walk to the site is uphill over rough pasture and there are information boards in the car park and at the broch itself. No visitor numbers are available but the site is widely promoted as a tourist destination. Dun Beag is a scheduled monument (rescheduled in 2000)3. The scheduled area is a rectangle 135 metres north to south by 115 metres east to west, with the south-west corner missing. The scheduled area takes in the broch itself, and a complex of structures adjacent to the monument, on and below the knoll. note on terminology There is ongoing debate about the use of the term ‘broch’. Ian Armit suggests that classic broch towers are at the complex end of a spectrum which has simple, low-walled roundhouses at the other end.4 The term ‘complex Atlantic Roundhouse’ was promoted by Armit5 to highlight the similarities between categories of building classification.6 Tanja Romankiewicz, in her recent study of the drystone roundhouses of the later prehistoric period in Scotland, uses the term ‘complex Atlantic Roundhouse’ to include “all circular and also sub- circular stone-built structures that could feasibly be roofed”. To be included in her study structures also had to contain evidence for intramural space.7 This 1 MacSween 2002 2 MacKie 2007 3 HES file AMH/90325/2/3 – Scheduled monument: Dun Beag, Broch, Struan, Skye – Scheduling Extension 4 Armit 2003, 17 5 Armit 1991 6 See also Gilmore 2005 7 Romankiewicz 2011, 1 Historic Environment Scotland – Scottish Charity No. SC045925 Principal Office: Longmore House, Salisbury Place, Edinburgh EH9 1SH 2 terminology gets round the association of brochs with ‘towers’ as it is likely that many brochs were lower in height than the most complete example, Mousa in Shetland, which is 13 metres high. ‘Complex Atlantic Roundhouse’ as a term, however, also includes other distinct forms of house design, such as wheelhouses and non-circular structures such as small duns, monuments whose use spans over a thousand years. In the current document the term ‘broch’ is used to define a group of round structures with a specific combination of architectural features – a stone-built construction, galleried walls with evidence for a stairway leading up within the galleries, no external openings apart from the entrance, and cells within the wall at ground level, sometimes leading off the entrance passage, sometimes leading off the central courtyard. While the benefits of a ‘catch all’ terminology are accepted, it is argued here that there are also benefits in narrowing down the definition to reflect deliberate design choices. This follows John Barrett in his 1981 paper on the Iron Age in Atlantic Scotland, where he observed that ‘…the broch is a particular house type in the Iron Age of Atlantic Scotland. This does not mean that we now have to reduce its architectural form to some generalised ‘roundhouse’ type in which we might include timber houses, crannogs and duns…Rather we recognise that brochs, along with these other monuments were constructed for the occupancy of a particular residential unit…It is in the details of construction and use, and of how the residential unit was defined, that a fuller understanding of the essential variety of these monuments lies.’8 1.2 Statement of significance ‘Broch’, probably from the Norse word ‘borg’ which means ‘fortified place’, is a term used to describe a type of drystone roundhouse with specific architectural features including a double-skinned wall housing galleries and stairs.9 There has been much discussion about the dating of the origin and development of brochs. From the excavated material a date within 200 BC to 100 AD would be expected for the main occupation at Dun Beag. Brochs are found only in Scotland, mainly in the islands off the north and west of Scotland, and the north and west mainland, with fewer examples further south.10 Dun Beag’s cultural significance can be considered under five main headings: • its survival as one of the best preserved brochs on Skye. Because it is presented in its excavated state, visitors can appreciate many of the architectural features which typify west-coast brochs. • what the choice of site says about the occupants. The location of Dun Beag, on a rocky knoll with extensive views over the surrounding landscape, 8 Barrett 1981, 212 9 see, for example, Mackie 2005, 12-13, ‘the essentials of broch architecture’ 10 Armit 2003, 119 Historic Environment Scotland – Scottish Charity No. SC045925 Principal Office: Longmore House, Salisbury Place, Edinburgh EH9 1SH 3 indicates that the builders were combining the practicalities of finding a dry location which had a ready source of raw materials, with a desire to ensure that the structure could observe a wide area and also be seen from a distance. • the importance of the excavated material remains. The artefacts recovered during the excavation of the site indicate something of the activities carried out at the site (metalworking, cooking, processing grain) and include some personal items (pins, glass beads). They also hint at intermittent occupation and / or use of the site extending beyond the Iron Age into the Viking, Medieval and post-Medieval periods. • the relationship of the broch with other sites and features both in the immediate area (field boundaries, fort, hut circles) and with other types of Iron Age structures on the west coast of Scotland. It is likely that further archaeological work could uncover midden material and structural remains around the broch and add to our understanding of the site in its immediate context. • the association of the site with Johanna von Ettingshausen, Countess Vincent Baillet de Latour. Ettingshausen was one of Scotland’s early female archaeologists and her work on the Skye brochs of Dun Fiadhairt and Dun Beag are important events in the history of archaeology in Scotland. 2. Assessment of values 2.1 Background Description Dun Beag broch is prominently located on a rocky knoll on moorland above Loch Bracadale on the west coast of Skye, at about 60 metres above sea level. The broch is ground-galleried in construction and measures around 18.6 metres externally and around 10.7 metres internally.11 The walls survive to around 1.2 metres high (internally) but the amount of collapsed stone lying around the base of the knoll, and the descriptions of early travellers, indicate that the structure was considerably higher when built. The building is entered through a now roofless entrance passage where the thickness of the broch walls is apparent. The passage leads into a circular courtyard with an uneven surface formed of the bedrock. There are three further doorways leading off the courtyard. Going in a clockwise direction, the first entrance leads to an intramural cell to the left and an intramural staircase to the right. Opposite the main entrance is a doorway leading into the gallery and just to the right of the passage is an entrance into a small circular cell.