<< Other Photo Pages >> Dun Deardail - Vitrified Fort in Scotland in Highlands
Submitted by howar on Thursday, 05 October 2017 Page Views: 15032
Neolithic and Bronze AgeSite Name: Dun Deardail Alternative Name: Dundbhairdghall, Dun Dearg Suil, Dun Dear DuilCountry: Scotland
NOTE: This site is 6.794 km away from the location you searched for.
County: Highlands Type: Vitrified Fort
Nearest Town: Fort William
Map Ref: NN127701
Latitude: 56.784667N Longitude: 5.067664W
Condition:
5 | Perfect |
4 | Almost Perfect |
3 | Reasonable but with some damage |
2 | Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site |
1 | Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks |
0 | No data. |
-1 | Completely destroyed |
5 | Superb |
4 | Good |
3 | Ordinary |
2 | Not Good |
1 | Awful |
0 | No data. |
5 | Can be driven to, probably with disabled access |
4 | Short walk on a footpath |
3 | Requiring a bit more of a walk |
2 | A long walk |
1 | In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find |
0 | No data. |
5 | co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates |
4 | co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map |
3 | co-ordinates scaled from a bad map |
2 | co-ordinates of the nearest village |
1 | co-ordinates of the nearest town |
0 | no data |
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Dun Deardail is one in a line of vitrified forts that stretches from Craig Phadraig outside Inverness all the way down to the West Coast of Scotland. Most of its names refer to a fancied connection with Princess Deirdre but it is also known as Dun Dearg Suil 'Hill of the Red Eye'. This has been read as a reference to usage as a beacon hill, or possibly even folk-memory of its vitrification
Or possibly a lost legend about a woman mourning her dead lover red-eyed. Was her Naoise (not the Irish one) buried at Dun Dige mayhap ?
Access: On the road out of Fort William that goes to the two Stiell Falls you have Ben Nevis on your left and Nevis Forest on your right. Go along this road as far as the peat track that is part of the Cow Hill Circuit in the forest.
At the top where it meets the West Highland Way several directions are signposted including that for 2.8km (ha, ha) to this vitrified fort. A long steady walk along the forest road. It took an hour to come back down and so I guess my sister and I took an hour-and-a-half to get there. Going along this arduous trek you simply must have either a digital camera with several cards spare or a video camera. Which I didn't so it could well take longer if you have.
Eventually you reach the point where the signpost points to the Dun Deardail track off the West Highland Way. You go over the most incredible stile, of such a size you could literally take a pram over it - except the track is strictly for the feet. It is basically a gravel path consolidated by black bags of something spongy underneath, so that you have the strange (and at times disconcerting) feeling of walking on a deep forest floor.
Just before the fort is a big hill called An Dun despite being nothing of the sort, purely natural. At one marshy spot there is a duckboard walk. My sister wisely went no further. I cannot recommend this site to anyone that is not either very sure of foot or else foolhardy - you imagine beforehand someone will have made a level route straight into the interior of Dun Deardail but instead find yourself clambering up the steep sides on a not-quite-straight stony path.
The narrow path is composed of different materials, the right hand section (below the level of the left by several inches) is all fragmented planes of presumably bedrock whilst the left is small boulders and rocks, the right all grey but the left of differing hues not all owing to vitrification. I think in far drier weather climbing over the turf would have been my choice instead. Once you do reach the top its mostly depression, with a narrow outer circuit at the edge of the sharp drop about the site. I made most of the circuit when I had a bit of a slip. Fortunately this was towards the interior as though the drop isn't sheer I don't think you'd stop until you hit the bottom of the slopes anything up to 700m below. There are what appear to be reasonably sized structures around the edges of the interior but my view was rather damp and this really is the wrong season for a major recce unless you can get around nettles and such. On my way back down I held close to the slope and went down gingerly with my hands holding tight on the turf as I practically slithered down. You have been warned.
RCAHMS NMRS no. NN17SW 6
Note: Evening talks on Hillforts of the Tay with David Strachan, and Dun Deardail with Martin Cook - presumably covering the excavations from this past summer, at the University of Edinburgh Tuesday 7th November
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