Posts tagged ‘ballygown’

Broch ~ Dun nan Gall

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Isle of Mull at Ballygown

Broch ~ Dun nan Gall

Dun nan Gall remains on Loch Tuath near present day Ballygown settlement

“The skills employed in building … brochs is considerable: to construct a building” of some height “without the use of mortar, demands a good deal of practical engineering experience. The Iron age solution to erecting a high defensive wall was to construct it as an H-frame: the wall being built as two concentric rings, tied across all the way up with stone beams or lintels – the whole in effect, being a thick-built and strongly jointed scaffolding. Unlike scaffolding, however, the outer wall was given a slight batter or slope inwards and the platform went up inside it in a spiral.”

Dun nan Gall with burn and Loch Tuath beyond – note the dry laid and fitted stone wall with stones that supported the timber floor jutting out from the bottom of the stone wall

” … at Dun nan Gall, the gallery, at least at ground floor level would have been wide enough to walk around and there is the remains of a staircase going up within the wall.”

Dry masoned doorway – Dun nan Gall

Dun nan Gall with burn in foreground and Loch Tuath and the Isle of Ulva beyond

Dun nan Gall is built on a rocky promontory jutting out into Loch Tuath and is clearly visible from the road from Kilninian to Ulva Ferry just as the houses at Ballygown are reached.”

“… it had a scarcement or timber floor and the stones that supported the floor may be seen jutting out from the inside wall of the broch. “

“… the entrance could be barred across and there is a deep channel, square in section, on one side of the door where the bar was lodged and a shallower hole on the other side into which the bar fitted.”

Jean Whittaker, Mull Monuments and History, 2004, Brown and Whittaker, Tobermory PA75 6P