Carn Ban

Nearest town:
Uig (10km WSW)
OS reference:
NG48746825
OS sheet:
23
Latitude:
57° 38' 2.59 N
Longitude:
6° 12' 35.87 W
Added to TMA by

Images

Image of Carn Ban (Stone Fort / Dun) by drewbhoy

The west side, various places I climbed a long time ago in the background.

Image credit: drew/A/B
drewbhoy
drewbhoy Aug 3, 2019
Image of Carn Ban (Stone Fort / Dun) by drewbhoy

East side of the dun, island of Eilean Flodigarry behind.

Image credit: drew/A/B
drewbhoy
drewbhoy Aug 3, 2019
Image of Carn Ban (Stone Fort / Dun) by GLADMAN

I assume the indicated to be the remains of the Carn Ban broch, looking from the environs of Garafad. The rock walls of Meall Na Suiramach and The Quiraing tower above to the left, with Dun Vallerain (correct me if I’m wrong?) rising above the site across Staffin Bay.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Jul 7, 2012

Articles

Carn Ban

drewbhoy
drewbhoy Aug 6, 2019

We approached following the same route as the Thelonius’s for the first time, and from this side I thought it was dun. Many years ago I’d walked from Garafad (Cadha Riach) and thought it was a cairn. From there, as Gladman says, it looks like a sizeable cairn.

The thing, to me, that made my mind up is when walls fall from a dun (or fort/broch etc) even if on flattish ground, the stone scatter is much bigger, nearby buildings tend to be built next to rather than into (i.e. Eyre Manse cairn), also stones for cairn building tend to be hard to build or the wrong shape for walls (as I know from restoring many old dry steen dykes) whereas stones for duns tend to be built, therefore easier to use.

Anyway that’s my thoughts, as for the dun, beautiful views of my old friend The Quiraing, Staffin and everywhere really. Like Canmore I think the entrance is in the north west.

Visited 20/7/2019.

Carn Ban

thelonious
thelonious May 25, 2013

22/05/2013 – Easy access from the little road to the north. Just a short walk uphill past the house to Carn Ban. Marked as a cairn on the map but after reading Gladman’s post below it makes more sense to me now as a dun or possible broch. Fantastic setting.

Miscellaneous

Carn Ban
Stone Fort / Dun
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Jul 7, 2012

Viewed from a distance (from the cliff top remains of the nearby Garafad chambered cairn) I took this site to be the disturbed remnants of a substantial round cairn. Judging by the nomenclature I am not the first to make such an (apparently incorrect) assumption; however it would appear that current thinking believes this to be the remains of a dun/broch. According to Canmore:

“Not a chambered cairn, but remains of a dun (or possibly a broch), mutilated and robbed for later settlement. The outer and inner faces of a wall varying between 3 – 3.5m in thickness, with an internal diameter of between 10 – 11m. The entrance passage (0.7m in width) lies at the NW. A circular structure some 2m in diameter and with a wall thickness of 0.8m sits in the northern quadrant of the interior, and is probably of a later date. Similarly hollows within the interior seem to be of a later date to the defensive works. Later rectangular buildings to the E, W and N and stone dykes, have probably absorbed some of the original fabric.
Visited by R Miket, 15 April 1988”

I fully intended a visit prior to the cloud mantle covering The Quiraing peeling away and offering the opportunity of a climb which I could not refuse. But there you are.

Sites within 20km of Carn Ban

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