Annnait - 28 Apr 2016

[apologies for the VERY late posting on this!]

Annait 'fort' - visited 28 April 2016

According to Canmore, it's classified as a 'fort, sheiling huts' and its alternative name is 'Fairy Bridge' - see other correspondence from Joy about the Fairy Bridge being at the junction of three streams.

1921site drawing

Although the 1921 site drawing doesn't mention it, the central area was apparently used until relatively recently as a burial ground.  That would mean a coffin road: peering at Google Earth in search of it shows a landscape criss-crossed with lines but whether dykes, ditches or old pathways, only tramping will tell.

Returning to our visit to the site, though: access was a little challenging - the stream had risen an inch or two since Joy and Judy checked it out last weekend but we managed to cross with trepidation and without mishap.

 

A not-too-difficult scramble and we reached the large, flat, roughly triangular area on top.



Lots of overgrown remnants of walls, covered in turf and last year's bracken, boggy in places.   On either side, down steep slopes are the two streams; a third cascades down from the forestry plantation to the west.

Perhaps most curious were the two pairs of small cells.  Each seemed barely large enough to sit in yet trouble had been taken to build stone walls.

The so-called chapel was, likewise, tiny - barely a dozen feet long, from memory.  Alas, photos were difficult thanks to the snow - and the rather confusing turf-covered lumps with the remains of last year's bracken on top.    It made more sense when it was actually under your feet!

We just made it back to the car as the blizzard really set in ... and we headed to the bakery in Dunvegan for tea and to discuss what we'd seen.