Monument record MHG4666 - Fort - Dun da Lamh, Black Craig, Laggan

Site visit on 18/07/01 - see Hlink digital photos. This site is the subject of local community interest for further access and interpretation. Although relatively easy walking to get to the fort, the route through the forest is uninteresting and long. The site itself has TV aerials and Home Guard shelters on top, but these do not detract too much from the experience. Selective felling of trees from the site itself and around the edge to open out the views would enhance the site.
A M Fox, Highland Council, 19/07/01

NN59SE 3 5823 9295.

(NN 5823 9295) Dun-da-lamh (NAT) Fort (NR)
OS 1:10,000 map, (1971)

Fort, Black Craig, Laggan: Black Craig is a rocky eminence the sumit of which attains a height of 1,484 OD and stands 600ft above the level of the ground a quarter of a mile distant. The sole defence is a stone wall, the faces of which have recently been cleared in places. The uneven nature of the ground has meant that the distance between the inner and outer faces varies from place to place, the limits recorded being 13ft and 23ft. The WSW section of the wall runs for a little more than 300ft athwart the line of approach, cutting off the promontory which consists of two elevated areas and the depression between them. A point about the middle of this stretch has been used in modern times as an entrance, an engineered pathway being directed up towards it from the col, but enough of the inner and outer faces of the wall can be seen on the surface to make it reasonably certain that originally there was no entrance at this point. The only unquestionable gap is in the middle of the NW part of the wall, and this leads directly into the central depression. The stones of the wall are small and while the remote situation may have acted as a degree of protection against casual or systematic stone robbers, the condition of some parts of the wall is remarkable. At the W apex, for example, the inner face of the wall stands exposed to a height of over 6ft, while the outer face in the middle of the SE sector reaches as much as 9ft. The interior is, as may be seen from the plan, occupied by different levels of rocky bosses and courts. It is impossible from surface observation to say to what extent these may have been altered by the fort builders, but it is very probable that such terraces as those NE of the central depression supported dwellings. A dug-out of the kind made by the Home Guard in the 1939- 45 war is situated in the S apex, and a cairn stands near it on the line of the inner face of the wall. Three other cairns stand on the debris of the wall near the N apex.
T Wallace 1921; M MacKay 1857; Infomation from RCAHMS MS (R W Feachem,
19 September 1956).

Dun-da-Lamh or Black Craig is generally as described above. The enclosing wall survives to a maximum internal height of 2.5m in the NW corner, where the tumble has been cleared, and to a maximum external height of 2.2m in the S.
Visited by OS (N K B) 12 October 1965.

No change to previous field report.
Revised at 1:10,000.
Visited by OS (J M) 28 February 1979.

The site was visited and photographed by a member of the Highland Council on an unknown date. <1> <2> <3> <4> <5> <6> <7> <8> <9> <10> <11> <12> <13> <14> <15>

A topographic archaeological survey was carried out by Headland between September 2010 and February 2011 as part of a Forestry Commission project to survey five Iron Age forts, four of which were in Highland region. <16>

Maintenance work on the west face of the fort walls was carried out on May 20th 2008 by stonemason Nic Aitken, on behalf of the Forestry Commission Scotland and Historic Scotland. <17>