Torr a'Chaisteal Dun

On an isolated grassy knoll at Corriecravie, four miles south of Blackwaterfoot on Arran, Torr a'Chaisteal is a small dun, a fortified home of a kind common in the west of Scotland in the late Iron Age, about 2,000 years ago. On top of the knoll are the low footings of a circular building 14 m across, with walls of large boulders 3 m thick, and on the landward side a substantial bank cuts the knoll off for extra defence. Antiquarians digging here in the 1800s found bones of deer, ox, boar and pig, part of a quernstone and pieces of iron ore, the debris of a farming household. It probably held a single roundhouse, perhaps the home of a prosperous farmer, since duns are too common in the west for all to have been chieftains' strongholds. From the top there are wide views across the Kilbrannan Sound to Kintyre and Ailsa Craig. Walk about 400 m across fields from the A841.