Dun Colbost revisisted

Broch entrance and outer wall

Plan by Swanson

Directions and Access:
NG 2055 4947

The broch is situated on Colbost Common Grazings, on a rocky knoll above the Dunvegan to Glendale Road.

There is room to park a  car  at a small quarry (approximate grid reference NG 2023 4964) or at the layby opposite Skye Silver.  A track leads up the hill from the quarry.  As the track ends, the broch comes into view and is reached by crossing boggy moorland. Approximately 10 minutes walk.

The Broch

In the original RCAHMS description of Dun Colbost (1904) no entrance was visible but they believed “it was probably in the west”.  The broch was described as being in “poor condition”.  Nevertheless, subsequent excavations have revealed tantalising but inconclusive information hinting at a more sophisticated structure.  Glendale Trust  is currently investigating the possibility of obtaining funding for a more in depth excavation.

An excavation, carried out in 1989, exposed the entrance to the broch as well as interesting evidence of a cobbled area outside the broch.    

 

The entrance itself is obscured by a "danger" sign

Camera inserted behind danger sign

Further excavation in 1990 added little knowledge but in 1994, the area between the broch wall and the outer “perimeter “ wall revealed evidence of stone paving, covered drains, and a hearth.  

 Curiously there seems to be no entrance in the outer wall which corresponds to the broch entrance.

There is a terrace south of the entrance which is mentioned in the brief description of 1990 excavation but no suggestion is offered as to its purpose.  In a modern house, it would make a lovely flower bed!

Possibly  lintel over intra mural gallery in East

The inside of the broch is full of tumbled stones and it is difficult to see much evidence of the mural gallery mentioned on canmore and no scarcement can be seen.

There appears to be a very small structure inside the broch  just north of the entrance – perhaps a sheiling or bothy created after the broch had been destroyed.   

Internal structures north of entrance

circular hole crossed with lines

One of the stones in the North West Sector  has an intriguing circular hole about 3" deep - it looks too perfectly circular to be natural.

An enclosure/sheep fank to the east of the broch has clearly made use of many of the stones.  This enclosure is shown on the 1877 map of the area.

 

 

Portion of Inverness-shire (Isle of Skye), Sheet XXI (includes: Duirinish)

'Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland'

http://maps.nls.uk/index.html

Sheep fold - the wall to the north show better workmanship those the wall to the south

References:

https://canmore.org.uk/site/10833/skye-dun-colbost

http://theglendaletrust.org/dun-colbost-broch-working-group/

A MacSween & D Reed in Discovery and Excavation in Scotland 1989, 1990. 1994.

Swanson, C B. (1988) A contribution to the understanding of brochs, Unpublished Ph D thesis, University of Edinburgh.  Retrieved 17/3/17

https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/2624/browse?value=Swanson%2C+Carol+Barbara&type=author

 

Dun Suladale - 3

Dun Suladale seems to fit the template that we've constructed for Dun Sleadale: access to the sea, an area of arable and an area of pasture, with the broch positioned on the edge of the territory surveying it all.

Markings on the ground

Our recent walk to Dun Sleadale gave us rather a good view across Sleadale Burn to the lumps and bumps of what was (probably) once Talisker village.  I'd taken a rather unhelpful printout from the aerial version of Google Maps with the various nearby records from Canmore marked on it, but these were nowhere near ... and once you start to look, the place is covered in lines and outcrops and who-knows-what.



At the time, I assumed that the reason I couldn't spot anything I'd drawn on my plan, but could see lots of other things, was because I'd messed up the locations.  Importing data (e.g. from Canmore) and building layers on a Google map is reasonably easy - the map above shows all the archaeological sites on Skye that are recorded by RACMS ... but it's also very easy to shift a whole layer sideways with a twitch of a mouse's whisker.

So, when I got back, I rechecked ... and no, I hadn't got it wrong.  I hadn't been able to spot what I was supposed to be able to see, and I saw lots of other things instead.

This one - a line running more or less dead straight south-eastwards (ish), and aligned close to the east side of the broch, reminded me that I'd seen a comment somewhere on this blog about brochs being located at the junction of various lines.  Spot the lines, and where they meet ... there will be a broch ... and if it's not on the map, then maybe it's just not been discovered yet.



So - I went back to google maps and their aerial view.  Wow, the area is just covered in lines and squiggles and signs of occupation ... and the more you see, the more you can convince yourself are significant and not just accidental exposed seams or gullies in the rock.

Sadly, just when I thought I might be on the track of a Really Important Discovery, Steve T - who has recently spent a lot of time studying territories and boundaries between communities - ruined it all by pointing out the obvious: that boundaries (in the days before cheap 'n' cheerful wire fences) would have run between obvious and immovable landmarks, and thus not need to be marked at all on open ground.  You don't get much more obvious or immovable than a broch - with the added bonus that, in a dispute, nobody could say 'Oh, that broch ... no, I'm sure we agreed this one - hard lines, it's my land and I'm not giving it back'. 

It was a really interesting exercise, though, and one I'll repeat before we go on our next walk - then, maybe, we can work out whether what is obvious to an eye in the sky is borne out by boots in the bog.

Dun Sleadale Part 3

Here is my idea of what Dun Sleadale's territory might have been. It has an area of around 9.6sq.km.

The land down by Talisker House would surely have been used for growing barley while the cattle (and sheep) were pastured in Sleadale.