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MHG3976 - Fort - An Sgurr, Eigg

Summary

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Type and Period (1)

Protected Status

Full Description

NM48SE 6 4612 8474.

(NM 461 847) A fort, 1320' long and 300' broad, with an area of more than 9 acres, lies on the east end of An Sgurr, a sheer-sided table of pitchstone 400' high.
R W Feachem 1963

The only approach is from the west, up a steep and rocky ascent, which has been barred by a drystone wall, 10' thick and 250' long, which connects the brinks of the north and south precipices. An entrance 5' wide exists towards the southern end. The wall is now mainly scree. RCAHMS 1928, visited 1925

A fort generally as described by Feachem and RCAHM. The wall has followed the brink of a W-facing slope and is best preserved towards its N end where the outer face survives to a height of 1.7m. The wall thickness appears to be about 3.2m. Elsewhere the wall has slipped
away and survives as a band of loose debris on the slope. RCAHM's alleged entrance is about 30.0m from the S end where there are traces of a debris-filled gap showing no structural features. A similar but more obvious gap occurs about 20.0m from the N end of the wall. There are no traces of internal occupation.
Visited by OS (ISS) 4 May 1972

Written on rear of photograph IN/780;

'Wall across Scuirr of Eigg
"Along one of these ditch-like gaps, which serves to insulate the Eastern and highest portion of the Scuirr from all its other portions, we find fragments of a rudge wall of uncemented stones, the remains of an ancient hill-fort; which, with its natural rampart of rock on more of its four sides, more than a hundred yards in sheer descent, and with its deep ditch and rude wall on the ?fau..., must have formed one of the most inacessible in the kingdom." The Cruise of the ?Bekey p 41., Hugh Miller 1844(?)'

This site was included in the Atlas of Hillforts of Britain and Ireland online database. See link below for site entry. <1>

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Map

Location

Grid reference	Centred NM 4612 8474 (100m by 100m) (2 map features)
Map sheet	NM48SE
Civil Parish	SMALL ISLES
Geographical Area	LOCHABER

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