Kilpatrick Dun

A mile south of Blackwaterfoot, on a hillside overlooking Arran's west coast and Drumadoon, Kilpatrick Dun holds the remains of several phases of life on the land. The dun itself is a stone-walled circular settlement, most probably Iron Age, with a larger enclosure attached later. Until the 1970s it was thought to be an early Christian monastic enclosure, an idea since dropped. Excavation found a cist, probably Bronze Age, beneath the circular building. Around it are hut circles, two to the west and at least three to the east, and further east a Bronze Age kerb cairn built in several phases, with traces of fields that may have been tilled in the Bronze Age; more lies hidden under peat that formed as the climate cooled. It is one of several prehistoric sites on this coast, a few miles south of Auchagallon and Machrie Moor, and an information board explains the remains. The dun must be reached on foot, about half a mile up a farm track from the A841.