Archaeology Notes

Event ID 650292

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/650292

NC65SE 1 6655 5092.

(NC 6654 5091) Earth-house (NR)

OS 6" map, (1962)

An almost intact earth-house whose entrance, on the top of a hillock, is an aperture about 2ft square beneath a slab. The passage slopes downward, gradually growing wider and higher, and some 20ft from the entrance is about 3ft wide and from 4ft 6ins to 4ft 10ins high. At 32ft inwards, its width is reduced to 2ft by a rebate on the right side; thereafter it gradually widens and curving round to the right terminates in a pear-shaped expansion about 6ft wide and 4ft 4ins high. The extreme length of the earth-house is 42ft. A few flags lying displaced outside the entrance suggest that it was longer. The sides are carefully built without mortar and it is roofed with slabs overlapping each other; the walls throughout are in perfect condition.

J Horsburgh 1870; RCAHMS 1911, visited 1909.

The only external signs of this souterrain are two large slabs at the entrance, now 2ft wide and 1ft 6ins deep, and a depression in the ground. To a length of 12ft to 15ft, the souterrain appears to be in good condition.

Visited by OS (J L D) 29 April 1960.

No change to the preceeding report. Now at corrected plan position NC 6655 5092.

Resurveyed at 1:10,000.

Visited by OS (J M) 19 July 1978.

Scheduled with deserted settlement NC65SE 4.

Information from Historic Scotland, scheduling document dated 26 April 1993.