
The north west tip of the fort.
The north west tip of the fort.
The west side of Dun Mingulay taken from north of the natural arch.
Not much wrong with the northern defence.
Below the west part of the fort.
The promontory from the south west, defences look ok to me.
A bit of zoom on the west part of the fort, the further away promontory.
A bit of zoom, I’d climbed from east to west, then back, having to go back as quickly as I could because of the boat’s schedule.
The promontory fort is in the middle. Berneray Lighthouse, on another island to the south.
After a wee look round the school and village along with some refreshment it was time to go west.
Going west is a hard slog up hill to a point between the Carnan and Heacla Hills. Somehow on reaching this point I lost sight of the track but spying the fort I headed through knee deep grass / heather until I reached point looking down on the site.
A stunning place, luckily it would get more stunning as the fort is situated on top of Scotland’s highest cliffs, the highest are at St. Kilda. The west defences were, of course, natural.
Canmore says :
The precipitous headland of Dun Mingulay, which drops 145m sheer into the sea along its NW flank and elsewhere descends in steps down to a more ragged cliff-edge about 70m high, is cut off by short length of wall. While of no great thickness, It presents five courses of a neatly-built outer face where it steps down across the slope from the crest of the outcrops 4m high facing onto the narrow neck. The interior measures about 650m from NE to SW by a maximum of 250m transversely (10ha). There is no evidence of an entrance, but the neck at the NE end represents the only possible point of access. The only features visible within the interior are three more recent animal pens, a marker cairn and a concrete mast plinth with five iron tethers.
Now I could have told you all of that, sadly for me I had to get back to the east side as my time on the island was running out. One good thing from this vantage point I spied the track, along the bottom of Carnan. One bad thing, it was the hottest day of year.
The mid point of the walk has wonderful views west and east. Looking down onto Aenir Beach, I spied A & B.
By the time I’d made it to them, the boat was ready to leave in 10 minutes. Job done!
Fantastic site, so close.
Visited 15/07/2022.
Some closer up photos.