Monument record 1542 - MACPHEE'S HILL, MINGULAY

NL58SE 78 5660 8445

MY86. A road or trackway c. 2m wide running SW-NE along NW slope of Macphee's Hill utilising natural rock shelf, but becoming a well-constructed road with metalling and revetment as it progresses north-westwards. It appears to peter out as it approaches the saddle between Macphee's Hill and Tom a' Reithean.
K Branigan 1993; NMRS, MS/595/10.

MY86 (NL56608448) Road.
Location: Cliff-top to valley floor to ridge-top.
Description: MY86 has a well-defined and constructed road bed, with revetting against the hillside, which runs from the north of Macphee's Hill at the cliff edge of Creag Dhearg, maintaining the same contour line and appearing to aim directly at the metre-high tumuli mound of MY277 on the skyline of the ridge between Tom a Mhaide and Macphee's Hill. Only at the cliff edge and out on to the valley mountainside at Macphee's Hill is the road artificially constructed. The rest of its route appears to be an unmodified path that loses itself among the peat dryers on the ridge around the tumuli. Presumably, from that point the ponies were guided down the slope to the village by whatever route was easiest. The peat carried along this route would have been cut in the area of a saddle and geological dyke between Macphee's Hill and Tom a Reithean where a number of peat dryers are also located.
Brannigan and Foster 2000, 103

K Branigan, 1993b, Discovery and Excavation, Scotland, 109 (Bibliographic reference). SWE28576.

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