Archaeology Notes

Event ID 652258

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/652258

NC86SW 3 8339 6359.

(NC 834 636) Tumuli (NR)

OS 6" map (1873)

(NC 8335 6346) Hut Circle (NR)

OS 6" map (1962)

A two-phase settlement, lying in hough-land and consisting of a hut circle, field clearance heaps and late rectangular huts with associated field banks.

The hut-circle measures 4.2m in diameter within a wall 1.8m thick with an entrance in the east. A circular annexe 3m in diameter adjoins it on the NE and another possibly oblong, 3m by 1.5m on the west. About 15m to the east is another circle 6m in diameter, formed by an earth and stone bank 1.8m broad and 0.8m high, but this appears to be a robbed clearance heap, especially as there is no entrance. Many of the heather-clad clearance heaps are very large, some of the northernmost being up to 16m in diameter (cf NM85NE 3 and NM85NE 4 ) many have been robbed at centre, the remains now resembling enclosures.

RCAHMS (1911, visited 1909) describe examples of chambered enclosures in the north of the group but these appear to be large mounds into which rectangular huts have been inserted. One mound measures 11m in diameter and 1m high and two small rectangular turf-banked huts have been hollowed out of its top.

These appear to be fairly recent, possibly contemporary with the field banks which run east-west across the site, in some cases overlying clearance heaps.

Visited by OS (WDJ) 27 April 1960

This is a field system in association with a newly recognised hut circle at NC 8339 6359. Two recent banks extend E-W through the system, and several bothy-type structures occur towards the south end.

The published hut circle and other alleged circular features are merely opened heaps of field clearance.

The hut-circle is about 8.5 by 7.5m inside a reduced heather-covered wall with an ill defined entrance in the SE on the line of the longer axis. The field system covers about 3.5 hectares and is shown in large, heathery stone clearance mounds, spaced 20.0 to 30.0m.apart, and in a sinuous sprawled bank, probably linear stone clearance, lying roughly N-S in the region of the hut; the majority of the mounds are grouped in the area, 350.0m N-S by 60.0m between this bank and the bottom of the old river terrace to the west. Measurable cultivation plots are not discernible.

Surveyed at 1:10 000.

Visited by OS (JM) 23 June 1977.