RCAHMS: The Archaeological Sites and Monuments of Ewesdale and Lower Eskdale

Date August 1980 - March 1981

Event ID 1107716

Category Project

Type Project

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1107716

The Archaeological Sites and Monuments of Scotland

The records of archaeological sites included in this RCAHMS list were revised in June 2022. This task included updates to their location, classification and period, the creation of digital site-area polygons and the arrangement of site descriptions under a project heading. Revision was undertaken by Darroch Bratt and managed by George Geddes, HES.

'This list of sites and monuments in Ewesdale and Lower Eskdale has been prepared by archaeological surveyors attached to the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland as part of a project financed by the Scottish Development Department and sponsored by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

The items listed range in period from prehistoric burial-cairns and forts to deserted farms of comparatively recent date. The following categories have been omitted from the list: buildings eligible for listing … as buildings of special architectural or historic interest under the Town and Country Planning Acts (Scotland); buildings in towns; roads, railways and canals; most structures of 19th century and later date.

As in Upper Eskdale (RCAMS 1980) a significant number of monuments have been found and recorded for the first time during the course of this survey. Amongst them there are eleven prehistoric settlements, and of particular note is the remarkable palisaded site on Gibb's Hill (no. 24), where three phases of palisading succeed an unenclosed homestead. At the same site a patch of narrow rig-and-furrow, or perhaps spade-dug, cultivation lies adjacent to the settlement, and it may be contemporary with one phase of the sites occupation. In the category of medieval and later settlement twenty-one groups of platform-buildings have been identified, normally comprising no more than four buildings, although at Becks (no. 165) there are seven, and at the exceptional site of Boyken Burn 1 (no. 167) as many as twenty-nine.

The Committee is indebted to Mr G Jobey, Professor G D B Jones and Mr A Truckell for the compilation of this list.'

RCAHMS 1981