Monument record 1406 - SKIPISDALE, MINGULAY

NL58SE 22 5554 8187

Centred NL 5560 8204, NL 5554 8187 and NL 5563 8170. Three groups of up to 12 oval and circular "cells". Each group adjoined by walling, passages, with several constructional phases. Much ruined, no corbelling visible.
Visited by OS 30 August 1973

Three unroofed structures are depicted on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Hebrides, Barra etc, Inverness-shire 1880, sheet lxx), but they are not shown on the current edition of the OS 1:10000 map (1989).
Information from RCAHMS (SAH) 19 June 1997

MY345: settlment complex. Valley floor. A fragment of Iron Age pottery was found ejected from a rabbit burrow in the slope down to the stream that runs east-west immediately to the south of the site. The site, however, is a complex of more than one phase and almost certainly more than one period. The various buildings are contained in an area of c. 30 x 40m. The earliest visible structure appears to be a large circular stone foundation approximately 12m in diameter situated at the west end of the site, and it is from the vicinity of this building that the pottery sherd was recovered. The ring-wall is c. 1m thick and appears to be of a single thickness, which suggest that if it is Iron Age in date, it is either a wheelhouse or a roundhouse. No internal wall divisions were evident, but general structural collapse and stone robbing may account for that. Over and around the ring-wall are a number of later, smaller buildings of all shapes and sizes that continue in an interconnected line to the east for c. 20m where the building line turns, after a small gap, to continue for a further 20m to the north. Some of the sturctures are most likely the shelters that could form a shieling complex of the early modern/modern period, and it is also quite likely that Pictish-period occupation may have continued on the site, expanding out from the ring-wall building. Continuous settlement in a valley like Skipisdale is always a possibility and this site is the most likely location for it, but in such a complex of continually reused buildings and building materials, it cannot be determined by survey alone.
Brannigan & Foster 2000, 118-120

Keith Branigan & Patrick Foster, 2000, From Barra to Berneray: Archaeological Survey and Excavation in the Southern Isles ... (Bibliographic reference). SWE41033.