Site Report

WoSASPIN 4862

NS 087 532. The craggy site at Little Dunagoil resembles, on a small scale, the class of citadel or nuclear forts exemplified by Dunadd (NR89SW 1). Excavations in 1958-61 showed that it was occupied from the Late Bronze Age up to the 13th century. At 'A', in the SW, between outcrops, there is a steep grassy slope, pitched with stone walling. Excavations revealed post holes and a layer of occupation material. Finds made included a Late Bronze Age mould for a socketed axe, Iron Age pottery, and a comb fragment, probably Norse, 12th - 13th century. Behind the post-hole area and above the occupation layer were the remains of a much- robbed, later wall. At 'B', a little down the hillock is a flat, sheltered area. The space between two crags has been filled by a wall, similar to that at Dunadd. A single course remains at 'BB'. Though the area had been extensively occupied, no regular plan of huts could be made out. 'C' is divided from the rest of the complex by wall. 'Y': No evidence of occupation was found, and this area is thought to have been a cattle enclosure, with wall '00' to guide the animals. At 'D' and 'E' are 12th - 13th century long- houses. 'D' was 42 x 22 ft; two sherds of Samian pottery were found there, as well as other pottery of 5th - 7th, and 13th century date. 'E' was 45 x 22 ft; a stone, 3 1/2 ft high, in its E wall, has two cup marks on its inner face. A shell midden and a hearth were found in cave 'F'. A row of stones set into the ground at 'H' could not be explained. Traces of walling 'K' run round the S quadrant of the summit and over its highest point. Rampart 'R' partly encloses the complex of hillock and longhouses; the entrance may have been from the S. 'S', an outer rampart, runs parallel to 'R' for 24ft.
D N Marshall 1964a.

Centred NS 0865 5330 There is little surface evidence of the early occupation revealed by excavation at Little Dunagoil (Marshall 1964) (name accepted locally); a short stretch of walling, now reduced to a grass-covered spread of stones 1.5m wide, on the S side of the summit and a length of walling (kk on plan) (Marshall 1964) are all that can be traced. The latter leads down from the top of the site and runs alongside another much ruined wall 4.0m away on its N to form an entrance passage at the only point of easy access to the fort. Just to the N of this entrance is the enclosure 'C', bounded by steep slopes on all sides except the W where there is a well-preserved wall ('Y' on plan) 1.5m wide and 0.6m high. Wall '00' runs down the slope from here to a point just behind the eastern longhouse. The two longhouses are generally as described. A turf and stone wall 2.0m wide and 0.8m high runs around the east side of the hill to partially enclose the whole complex. It has been destroyed by a modern field wall on the N but reappears just to the W where it is accompanied for a short distance by an outer bank. This turf wall also runs southwards from Little Dunagoil for about 300.0m and appears to enclose all the land on its seaward side, and though described as a rampart by the previous authority it would seem to be of a defining or confining nature rather then defensive.
At NS 0861 5333 under the W facing cliff is a cave (F on plan) 2.0m high by 1.5m wide by 5.0 long. The finds from this site are in Rothesay Museum.
Surveyed at 1:10,000.
Visited by OS (B S) 11 November 1976.

Mould for knobbed spear-butt.
L Laing and J Laing 1987.

A new survey was undertaken in March-April 1994 and November 1994 of the forts and environs of Dunagoil, Bute, which revealed a number of structural features hitherto unrecorded, and helped to clarify anomalies in previous reports of the sites. During the course of the survey a fragment of jet bracelet and coarse pottery sherd were recovered from mole-hills in the summit of Little Dunagoil fort. These have been deposited in the Bute Museum at Rothesay (Reg nos: BM 1994.100 and 1994. 101 respectively).
Sponsor: University of Edinburgh, Department of Archaeology.
Harding, Ralston and Burgess 1994.

(Clay mould for socketed axe of Roseberry Topping variant of Sompting type). Single find. Mould of clay, blade part only. Length 155mm, length of matrix 115mm, width of cutting on matrix 89mm. Rothesay Museum (reg. unknown).
P K Schmidt and C B Burgess 1981.

NS 0868 5336. Below the outcrop at the S end of Dunagoil Bay, just inside the eastern part of the low stone and turf dyke surrounding Little Dunagoil fort, are the remains of two large rectangular buildings. The northern building has internal dimensions of 16m x 7.5m, its N wall is 2m thick and it has a 2.5m broad doorway in its E gable end, this structure was partly excavated in 1963 [Marshall, D N, 1964a). The southern structure has external dimensions of 16m x 9m, with walls 1.5m thick. There are also traces of a third, normally proportioned, building aligned downhill on a cleared platform higher up the slope. The houses are rather enigmatic, possibly dating to the early medieval period, it is also suggested that they are too large for normal domestic structures. The houses are marked on the modern edition OS maps.
Isle of Bute Settlement Survey, information provided to SMR August 1999.
Site report in SMR archive.
Entered WoSAS (NE) 05/06/00.