drewbhoy

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.

Walking north from Hecla Point you return to path that heads to the small village on Mingulay. Situated in front of the schoolhouse, looking east to the mainland, sits the Aneir cairn.

Once again the islanders have treated the site with respect and left it alone. It still stands at just over 5m wide / 0.8m tall and is surrounded by short grass.

A little look round the village, school and beach then it would be time for a walk over to the west side of the island.

Visited 15/07/2022.

After watching an old STV programme featuring the legendary walker and whisky drinker, Tom Weir, I’d always wanted to visit Mingulay. So the opportunity arose and we found ourselves on a boat, having boarded at Castlebay (on Barra), heading towards the island with a history, like a lot of these islands, very similar to St. Kilda.

There is no landing place or pier on Mingulay, the boat gets close to rocks to the south of Aenir Bay, someone pulls you ashore or you jump.

The small burial cairn is a short walk south through some tough heather.

In amongst the grass and heather the 6m wide site can be seen, sitting no more than 0.5m tall. Some kerbs remain steadfast, and perhaps there is a hint of a cist. Like Branigan suggests islanders appear to have treated the site with respect and left it alone.

Perhaps not the most stunning site I’ve ever seen, the views are some of the best I’ve ever seen.

Visited 15/07/2022

Finding this site was relatively easily as we were holidaying in Bruernish.

Just before the small village of Northbay, on Barra’s east side, there is a signpost indicating Bruernish. Take this and head east until a cattle grid at Boggach. Park here and jump the fence heading north, the east of the very small sea loch. I walked up the west side of fence, not much room but enough. In front, a headland will be seen, and 70m north of that is the dun.

The 70m is an easy guess as the causeway is that length, on my visit submerged. However, the dun can be easily viewed and some some stonework remains in place. Elsewhere vegetation is taking over or walls have fallen.

Lovely views, and the sea was calm.

Visited 14/07/2022

From the dun/broch at Dun Chaolais, I walked along the track on the north side of Bagh Chornaig, jumped over a few boggy bits and walked almost straight to the chamber cairn.

Bizarrely used as a hen house many years ago the oval shaped cairn has tremendous views of stunning seascapes, and going by the eagle that flew past the chickens did well to be out of view.

Not many of the stones remain, the main passage remains, the chamber is in a bad way and has had a variety of uses including the aforementioned chickens suggest.

Most of the cairn material has been removed, however the grassy areas reveal the width and oval shape being approximately 12m by 10m, not much height, 0.6m.

A lovely site with lovely views.

Visited 14/07/2022.

We parked in a small car park at the west end of Bagh Chornaig, walked west along the road then uphill to the north west to reach this impressive site.

There is plenty of visible wall built wall to see, there is plenty of fallen stonework to see as well. Like all of these things if there was time, the money, the people etc to give this place a gentle clean up would a Clachtoll type site might appear. Hard to tell but the aerial photographs suggest that something once stood here that was impressive, with a wee clean-up it could be impressive again.

Superb site, nearby a few of these odd semi circular sites which must be something but my friend Brannigan doesn’t exactly give good co-ordinates for many of them.

Visited 14/07/2022.