| 1171414 |
RECORDING |
FIELD VISIT |
NN 66271 42769. This large group of structures, comprising over sixty shieling-huts and several small enclosures, extends for about 300m along a broad terrace above the N bank of the Lawers Burn. Many of the huts survive only in fragmentary condition, having been built over, robbed, or eroded by one of the three minor burns that dissect the terrace, while others survive only as low turf mounds. Thirty, however, are reasonably well defined, roughly rectangular on plan and measuring internally from 1.5m to 5.2m in length and from 1.2m to 2.4m in breadth. They can be divided into two types on the basis of their wall construction, seventeen huts having walls entirely or largely built of turf, and thirteen having an internal stone facing encased within an outer shell or embankment of turf. The turf-embanked type includes most of the largest huts (six of the eight that measure 4.4m or more in length), but it also includes some of the smallest, including two sub-circular huts that measure only 1.5m in internal diameter (BL00 34, 41). Fifteen huts (including most of the turf-embanked ones) have low mounds outside their entrances, probably representing accumulations of midden material, which in some cases appear as a pair of elongated banks flanking the approach to the hut doorway. Internal features include aumbries set into the walls, which are found in four turf-embanked huts (BL00 33, 38, 40, 47), and an edge-set slab in one turf hut (BL00 52), positioned to one side of the entrance, which is probably part of a hearth. Finally, scattered amongst the huts there are at least four small enclosures, the largest of which measures about 6m in diameter within a turf bank. [...] |
18 April 2000 |
