Archaeology Notes

Event ID 696121

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/696121

NJ41NE 20.01 4892 1686

This Improvement Period steading is situated 150m SW of Mains of Brux farmhouse (NJ41NE 20.00) and is ranged around a courtyard. It displays two phases. The primary building lies on the N of the courtyard and is aligned from E to W. It is a two-compartment building, measuring 16.9m from ESE to WNW by 4.1m transversely within clay-bonded, lime-pointed rubble walls 0.9m in thickness. The walls stand and up to 3m in height, suggesting that there was an upper floor, and the entrance is on the S, adjacent to the entrance to the later courtyard. A roughly dressed stone in the right-hand side of the entrance has the date 1711 incised into it, but its style of script and the location make it unlikely to be an original datestone. The building was extended 6.7m to the W and subsequently extended again with a wider breadth to form the N range of the courtyard, which courtyard was aligned on a NE to SW axis. The NW range measures 20.3m by 4.8m within walls 0.58m thick and 1.2m in height and has three openings into the yard. The SE range, which includes a mill and barn, measures about 23m in length by 5.5m in breadth within walls 0.65m in thickness. There is a large opening for a cart in the SW end, and a covered passage some 2m wide through its NE end provided cart access to the yard. The interior is divided into two by an internal step 1m high about 7.6m from the SW end. The mill lies about half way along the SE side of the building, where there is a hole for an axle to pass through the wall. The wheel-pit is 0.9m wide, and housed a mid or overshot wheel, but its diameter could not be estimated. Water was delivered to the wheel by a lade from a millpond about 100m to the SW. The SW range is dilapidated and no details of its layout are visible.

Visited by RCAHMS (PJD) 16 September 2001.