Dunaverty Castle. The scanty remains of this castle occupy a conspicuous headland of conglomerate rock which projects into the Sound of Sanda between Dunaverty Bay and Brunerican Bay. The headland forms a natural stonghold, being sea-girt on three sides and approachable only from the N, where a narrow path links it to the mainland.
The fortress first comes on record at the beginning of the 8th century, when it formed a principal stronghold of the race of Gabran, grandson of Fergus of Dalriada. Dunaverty was seized by Scottish rebels with English help, and recovered by the Crown, in the 1240s. The most important event in the history of Dunaverty was General Leslie's siege and subsequent massacre of a royalist garrison under the command of Archibald MacDonald of Sanda in 1647. The castle was probably dismantled at the time of the Earl of Argyll's rebellion of 1685.
Nothing can be seen of what is assumed to have been an early medieval fortification on the site of the Dunaverty Castle, which stand on a precipitous headland flanking the E side of Dunaverty Bay. The remains of the castle comprise traces of mortared masonry on the edge of the level summit area, which measures no more than 18m from ENE to WSW by 9m transversely, a rough rock-cut staircase providing access to the summit on the ENE, and fragments of a curtain wall extending along a terrace commanding the neck of the craggy promontory on the N and blocking access elsewhere. While any earlier fortification may simply have occupied the summit, it may equally have followed the line of the curtain wall on the N, thus cutting off an area measuring about 58m in length from N to S by 28m in breadth (0.12ha). Atlas of Hillforts SC4309
The site is as described
Location
168810.00
607480.00
27700
55.3069450
-5.6442796
Submitted photographs
Image
Date
Caption
User
05/08/2024
Drone shot of castle - north to right of image
Paul Murtagh
05/08/2024
Drone image of castle - North to the right of image
