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RCAHMS Afforestable Land Survey, Cleish Hills
Date 1989 - 1993
Event ID 550864
Category Project
Type Project
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/550864
Work on the Cleish Hills has been carried out throughout the year. The Hills have undergone considerable afforestation in the 1980s which has left only intermittent windows of agricultural and industrial archaeology in between. The post-medieval settlements of this area are rare survivals of lowland east-coast rural settlement, whose vernacular building traditions include the use of clay-wall building techniques.
(DES 1990, 52)
The survey of the Cleish Hills has been a long-term project which was initiated in 1989 and is now being drawn to a close. The work has been divided into two parts, one a transect across the western end of the Cleish Hills surveyed at 1:2,500, and the other a sweep along the entire range of hills locating sites at a scale of 1:10,000. The 1:2,500 transect has involved the examination of extensive areas of cultivation remains, including, on the lower ground, systems of broad reverse-S rigs of a sort that have been largely levelled across the rich farmland of eastern Scotland; higher up, there are systems of fields enclosed by turf banks. These field-systems and the farmsteads and settlement earthworks that occur around them offer considerable potential for pre- Improvement settlement studies. The 1:10,000 sweep has concentrated on the mining remains that are scattered along the southern fringes of the Cleish Hills. Initial impressions suggest a grim toll of the 19th- and 20th century mine heads and spoil tips, lost through demolition, opencast mining and land-reclamation schemes, but a small number of earlier mining sites has also been identified.
(DES 1991, 79-80)
Cleish: the 1:10,000 survey, begun last year and concentrating on the mining remains and relics of extractive industries scattered along the southern fringes of the area, is now complete.
(DES 1992, 93)
Cleish: the survey data has been prepared for transfer to the NMRS.
(DES 1993, 120)
See also RCAHMS, Monuments on Record 1991-92, 10; 1992-3, 21
Project Code: CLEISH91
Area: 200km2
Structures database: MS731/8 (manuscript), DX001421.csv (database)
Linework: For 1 site only GV007621.dxf
