Archaeology Notes

Event ID 758313

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/758313

NG78SE 1.03 77 80 to 78 81

From NG 768 800 to NG 786 814 there are the remains of a probable IA settlement area occupied later as shielings followed by more recent (pre-1850) occupation.

The probable Iron Age settlement is indicated by some twenty hut-circles widely scattered, two enclosures and fragmentary traces of field walls of stone. The huts vary in condition from mere boulder outlines to substantial stone walls and in size from 6.0m - 13.0m overall diameter with entrances where evident in the E segment. Several have a small compartment either attached to the outer or inner face of the enclosing wall. The best preserved is at NG 7793 8090. It is 11.5m in overall diameter and is formed by a heather covered stone wall, with inner and outer facings 2.4m thick and c. 0.7m high with a well defined entrance on the E side. Two short stretches of wall extend NW & NE from the hut, between the W side of the NE wall and the outer face of the wall is a small sub-triangular compartment.

The larger of the enclosures is situated at NG 7758 8045. It measures 17.5m E-W x 16.0m N-S overall and now consists of two concentric walls of stone, 2.3m apart (but which may have been 2.3m thick) and 0.5m max height. No definite entrance was established.

Two types of stone clearance were noted within the area. Firstly, the usual gathering of the stones into small heaps, now heather-covered, and secondly, on ground thickly covered by stones and rock fragments, small cultivation plots have been created here and there by simply throwing the stones aside.

Visited by OS (WDJ) 11 October 1964.