Archaeology Notes

Event ID 667234

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/667234

NJ40 SW 13 4493 0017

(NJ 4493 0017) Circular Foundations (NR).

OS 6" map, Aberdeenshire, 2nd ed., (1901)

The New Kinnord Group, a settlement, LBA, according to Simpson, situated on a green patch in the midst of a heathery moor and on the NW side of Green Hill, a natural mound 300ft in diameter, 40ft high. The group comprises 5 main 'rings' A, B, D, E, R, an earth house, C, enclosure Q, hut circle, P, 'cairns', walls, hut circles and enclosures.

A - Deeply hollowed, no apparent entrance.

B - The largest, has a slightly hollow interior, consists of two concentric walls 70ft crest to crest from its outer wall, with an entrance on the E.

C - Along the western side of B a deep curving pit 60ft long and 15ft broad, shallower and narrower to the south where it is 6 to 8ft broad - indicative of an earth house.

D - Slightly hollowed out ring 65ft diameter crest to crest, with an entrance in the east. The north wall is in contact with A.

E - In contact with the W wall of A comprises an irregularly circular double wall.

P - In the angle between A and D, a small triangular hut.

Q - A bank attached to the N side of B which outlines a half moon shaped enclosure bisected by a line of stones placed at intervals and with an opening to the SE.

R - 'Circle' slightly diamond shaped in outline, deeply hollowed out with an opening on the SW side.

Green Hill has two cairns, one circular, one oval, near its summit and a number of stones placed in a circular fashion round its highest part. Also circular or oval foundations on its sloping sides and a few cairns and circular hut foundations on its SW. A prominent wall of heaped stones surrounds two thirds of the hill near its base. The wall, 2 to 3ft high, 10ft maximum breadth, has small chambers in its substance, three in the SW corner and one at the N side and a number of indistinct foundations of others in contact with its exterior on the NW side.

A Ogston 1931; W D Simpson 1944

A settlement of three well defined huts A, B and E, two enclosures D and R, an earth house C, and an associated field system comprising clearance heaps and field walls, most of the system being overgrown.

Hut A, measuring c.19.0m diameter, crest to crest, is defined by an unusually strong stony wall surrounding a hollow with a slight gap in the NW, possibly an entrance.

E and B, measuring C.17.0m and c.18.0m in diameter respectively, crest to crest, are defined by turf covered stony banks, c.3.0m. wide, considerably reduced and mutilated. B has an entrance on the southeast. Enclosure D, defined by a slight stony wall, is c.19.5m diameter. Enclosure R, defined by a stony wall, is irregularly shaped measuring c.26.0m east to west, c.24.0m north to south with no sign of the entrance noted by Ogston.

Earth House C is as described by Ogston with an apparent entrance within the north west arc of Hut E.

There is an ill-defined enclosure in a gap in a substantial field wall immediately to the south east of E.

All the other structures referred to by Ogston, including the two 'cairns' on Green Hill and Q and P, appear to be either mutilated clearance heaps or fortuitous arrangements caused by tumbled field walls and natural rock outcrops.

A hollow way that runs past the west side of the settlement is probably associated although utilized more recently as a track.

Surveyed at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (R L) 5 November 1968.

New Kinord, prehistoric settlement.

Air photographs: AAS/00/06/G20/9-12 and AAS/00/06/CT.

NMRS, MS/712/100.

Listed as 'New Kinord Group'.

(Air photographic coverage listed).

NMRS, MS/712/101.