Monument record MHG5031 - Dun Ard an T-Sabhail, Skye

NG33SW 1 3180 3333.

Dun Ard an T-Sabhail, NG33SW0001

Brochs were the defended homesteads of local chieftains in the Later Iron Age and are common in the northern and western Highlands. Dun Ard an T-Sabhail, with a complex series of walls enclosing the plateau on which it sits, is an elaborate example of such a broch. (47)

The broch itself is almost circular in shape. The entrance narrows as you pass though it and, unusually for a broch, has no evidence for the checks against which a wooden door would have rested. There appear to have been guard cells on either side of the passage. (48)

A narrow ledge, just under 1m above the present ground level, runs around the inside of the broch. This probably supported a wooden upper floor. Traces of galleries giving access to these upper floors survive within the thickness of the drystone wall. (42)

Armit, I., 1997. Celtic Scotland. Edinburgh: Batsford.

RCAHMS. 1928. The Outer Hebrides, Skye and the Small Isles. Edinburgh: HMSO, 141, No. 478

Information from SCRAN Project, March, 2000

(NG 3180 3333) Dun (NR)
OS 6"map, Inverness-shire, 2nd ed., (1901)

On the southern shoulder of Ard an t-Sabhail, a rugged peak rising to some 600' above sea level and overlooking Loch Bracadale, is a ruined broch, the wall of which is mainly fallen but one short section on the NE still stands to a height of 6'. The inside face of the wall is traceable along the eastern arc, and on the SE there is scarcement 9" wide 2' above the tumbled stones with the wall showing 2' more above the scarcement. The broch is nearly circular, measuring from 34'7" to 36'6" in diameter internally. The wall is 9' to 12' thick, and at the entrance, which lies in the E, it is 10'7" thick. The entrance passage tapers from 4'7" in width to 3' on the inside with no trace of checks. A guard chamber about 7' in length and 5'2" wide, lies to the S. of the entrance passage, and probably a similar chamber existed on the N side. Traces of a narrow gallery on the S are evident, and on the NE the inner wall, 4' thick, of a gallery can be detected.
A gully on the NE side of the rock has been blocked up by a stone breastwork immediately under the wall of the broch. The foundations of a wall 6'-8' thick leave the broch wall on the SW and swing round the rocky south-western edge of the terrace of some 75', whence they return eastwards, with a break for an entrance, for about 35', then die out on the rocky face of the hillside. The roadway runs through this entrance, which lies for 52' to 64' from the broch, is 12' in length, and varies from 4'3" to 6'6" in width. From the middle of the south-western wall of this defence, another wall, 5' in thickness, has run easterly, then northerly, towards the broch, and forms an enclosure about 31' in length by about 24' in width.
RCAHMS 1928; A Graham 1949.

A broch, correctly described by RCAHMS; in poor condition.
Visited by OS (A S P) 1 June 1961.