Measured Survey

Date 31 January 2017

Event ID 1040173

Category Recording

Type Measured Survey

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1040173

NH 8835 8283 (NH88SE 9) A survey was undertaken of Arboll Township (also known as Arbroll Links Township) on 31 January 2017. The township is located on rough sandy grassland 150m to the S of the shoreline behind several large sand dunes. The area is occasionally grazed by cattle. A channelled burn runs down the W side of the township and drains into the sea at a small creek.

The township consists of the linear remains of nine (possibly 11) buildings, up to 12 enclosures, 5 midden pits and a further pit/possible kiln. The features appear to be grouped into four, possibly five, distinct units suggesting farmsteads for families. Each unit has a building or two conjoined buildings, an enclosure or two, and most one or two midden pits.

Most of the linear remains are turf covered dry stone walls with a thickness or spread of between 0.6m and 1.5m and a height of 0.2m to 0.5m. The buildings are variable in size from 3–4m x 8–10m internally and the enclosures are equally variable in size from 6–8m x 10–14m, but as much as 25m in

one case. The pits are on average 4m in diameter and 0.5m deep.

The footings of a discontinuous dry stone wall (Feature 25), probably an estate boundary wall, bound the S side of the township; remnants of the wall can be traced for at least 1km eastwards. A trackway traverses the N part of the township.

The township appears to have been created as people were cleared from the hinterland, settled on marginal ground outside the estate boundary, and expected to make a living from pastoral and fishing activities. It is marked on a plan of Geanies Estate dated 1833 as ‘Fishertown of Arboll’. The enclosures were probably for kale or other crops and their number suggests that the cattle were free to roam about the township. It is quite likely that the community was heavily affected by the cholera epidemic of 1832 and the township may have been abandoned at that time.

Report: Highland Council HER

Meryl Marshall – North of Scotland Archaeological Society

(Source: DES, Volume 18)