Archaeology Notes

Event ID 733317

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/733317

NY59SW 14 5318 9093.

(NY 5318 9093) Moat (NR)

OS 6" map (1957)

This square homestead moat, measuring 100 ft from side to side internally, lies in open moorland at a height of 600 ft OD. It consists of a stony bank, spread to a breadth of 15 ft and up to 1 ft 8 ins high on the inside, with an external ditch, 15 ft wide and up to 2 ft 6 ins deep. The entrance, originally about 7 ft wide, is in the NW side. The homestead moat is situated in an extensive system of rectangular fields, probably of later date as the cultivation appears to have spread all over the site.

RCAHMS 1956, visited 1948

This homestead moat has dimensions generally as described by the RCAHMS. Situated under rough pasture, there is no evidence that the ditch was once water-filled; it is only significant around the S side and elsewhere is no more than a flat-bottom channel with little sign of silting. Outside the ditch on the S and E sides are low counterscarps, 0.3m high, with embedded stone flags near the SE angle suggesting a former wall line. The interior is level with profuse nettle growth and there are recent mutilations of the inside bank along the W arm and at the SE corner. The entrance appears slightly out-turned, although this may be exagerated by the disturbance to this W arm.

Outside the moat around the N is a broad and artificially heightened scarp up to 1.3m high, indicating that the moat utilised a natural elevation on this side. Later rig-and-furrow stops short of the moat on all four sides and there is no trace of contemporary outworks.

Surveyed at 1:10,000.

Visited by OS (JRL) 25 July 1979

This site is listed in an Atlas of Scottish History (McNeill and MacQueen 1996) as a moated site.

Information from RCAHMS (DE) September 1997