Pricing Change
New pricing for orders of material from this site will come into place shortly. Charges for supply of digital images, digitisation on demand, prints and licensing will be altered.
Field Visit
Date 9 May 1934 - 23 August 1950
Event ID 712737
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/712737
Old Village and Chapel Site, Over Kirkhope (NT 208 123 - NT 211 122).
About a third of a mile NW. of the shepherd's house of Over Kirkhope, the Kirkhope Burn debouches from a deep and steep-sided cleuch on to open cultivable ground in the bottom of the Ettrick valley. Here, on the left bank of the burn, at an elevation of about 1100ft O.D., there lie the scattered remains of a village, now represented by the foundation mounds of a number of small houses. The main group lies immediately NW. of the NW. boundary of the enclosed fields attached to the shepherd's house and consists of six recognisable structures now reduced to low grassy foundations. Four of these are rectangular, measuring from 16ft to 32ft in length by from 9ft to 17ft in breadth; one is oval, measuring 17ft and 11ft respectively along the axes; and one is circular with a diameter of 23ft. The northernmost, and largest, of these is marked on the OS map as the site of a chapel, but it would be unsafe to assume that the Orans stone described under RCAHMS 1957, No. 65 (NT21SW 3) necessarily came from this spot. The group is bounded on the NW by a low earthen bank, about 5ft in width, which runs NE for 140ft from a point near the edge of the broad bed of the burn to die out on the hillside. In the marshy land immediately NW of this bank there are some indeterminate enclosures and banks in a much-wasted condition. At a distance of 310 yards WNW of the "chapel site", however, there is an isolated structure, which lies on the edge of the bed of the burn. It is subrectangular, measures 18ft by 10ft along the axes, and is formed by a low stony bank 4ft in width. The entrance is in the W side. This structure is enclosed on N, E and S, at a distance of 6ft, by another low stony bank, 5ft in width, with a shallow external ditch 9ft in width. On the W both the ditch and the outer bank, which doubtless contained entrances in line with those of the inner structure, have been washed away by the burn.
RCAHMS 1957, visited 9 May 1934 and 23 August 1950
OS 6" map (1900) 'Chapel, site of'
