Archaeology Notes

Event ID 662168

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/662168

NH69SW 3 centred 611 929.

(Name at NH 612 930) Druim Liath - Battle fought here between Scots and Danes AD 1031 (NAT)

OS 6"map, Sutherland, 2nd ed., (1907)

Cairns (NAT) (Twice)

(NH 6123 9288 and NH 6126 9311) Field System (NR) (NH 6094 9314) Hut Circle (NR)

OS 25" map, (1969)

The ONB (1874) records that Druim Liath was the scene of a battle between the inhabitants and the Danes. Authorities conflict on the date, and it is confounded with a battle fought at Embo, Sutherland.

The Rev Joass (Mackay 1897) has little doubt that it was fought in 1031 between Sigurd the Gross and Earl Frimlic (Frimlike Jarl).

RCAHMS (1911) describes a hut circle and some small mounds some 120 yards N of Carn Liath (NH69SW 25).

Name Book 1874; J Mackay 1897; RCAHMS 1911, visited 1909.

Centred at NH 611 929 on the SW slopes of Druim Liath is a group of three circular stone-walled hut circles ('A' - 'C'), each with a poorly defined entrance in the SE, and an associated field system.

The entrances to huts 'B' and 'C', which are set into the slope, are sited at the junction of the excavated/built up portions.

Hut 'A' measures c.11.5m in diameter between wall centres, with the walling spread to c.2.5m all round.

Hut 'B' consists of a platform, set into the slope, measuring about 13.5m in diameter with traces of a stone wall around it.

Hut 'C' measures c.13.0m in diameter between wall centres, with the wall spread varying from c. 2.0m on the N to c.3.5m on the lower SW side.

The field system is defined mainly by stone clearance heaps (which have probably given rise to the tradition of the battle), with occasional lynchets and field walls, forming cultivation plots averaging 35m by 25m.

Visited by OS (R D L) 4 June 1963 and (N K B) 7 October 1969.

Settlement surveyed at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (I S S) 24 September 1973.

No change.

Visited by OS (J B) 5 September 1980.