Monument record MHG5344 - Caisteal Mhicleod

NG82SW 1 8155 2024.

(NG 8155 2019) Castle (NR) (Site of)
OS 6"map, Inverness-shire, 2nd ed., (1902)

Caisteal Mhicleod (or McLeod's Castle) situated behind the village of Galldar at the edge of a precipice, consists of a semicircular wall of irregular form (internal dimensions 18' x 34') occupying the level space of the summit.
The grass-grown wall has some stones still in situ; there is a narrow entrance on the E, a strong outwork on the N and a narrow wall forming the S side of the fort which appears to have been used for protection from the precipice. It was never a castle in the medieval sense but is said to have been last occupied by Alistair Crotach in the early 16th c, probably as a temporary residence or hunting-lodge.
L Bogle 1895.

(NG 8155 2024) Caisteal Mhicleod (NAT) Dun (NR)
OS 1:10,000map, (1971)

The dun is generally as planned by Bogle, consisting of a massive semi-circular wall best preserved in the W where several large boulders of the outer face survive and the suggestion of an inner face give a wall thickness of 4.4m. Within the wall here are two large blocks, possibly of a gallery. The wall elsewhere is poorly preserved but a few outer facing stones in the E give an overall measurement E-W of 17.3m. The interior is featureless except for an overgrown band of rubble 3.5m long and 1.2m wide running parallel with and 2.0m from the edge of the precipice. No constructional part of the entrance in the E (represented by a gap 2.0m wide at the edge of the cliff) survives. The outer wall, c. 9.0m outside the main wall in the E, is a straight revetment of large stones, 17.0m long and surviving to a height of two courses. If this is an outwork, there is no trace of its presumed extensiom N and W, and it is more likely a later wall built with stones from the main wall. Surveyed at 1:2500. (visited by OS {W D J} 5 October 1966)
The dun has many of the characteristics of the type classed as semi-brochs by MacKie. (E W Mackie 1969)
Visited by OS (A A) 21 June 1974. (E W Mackie 1969)