Balblair

NH59NE 10 583 974.

Found during field investigation and centred at NH 583 974 on a westerly slope is a settlement of four stonewalled huts ('A' to 'D') and an associated field system.

Hut 'A' survives as a circular platform about 11.0m in diameter, set into the slope, with the ill-defined remains of a stone wall around it. The entrance is not evident.

'B' above a slight scarp, is defined by a wall spread to about 2.5m in the E and 4.5m in the W and measures about 16.0m N-S by 14.5m between wall centres. The entrance may have been in the destroyed S arc.

'C' is circular, within a wall spread to about 3.0m all round, and measures 13.0m between wall centres. The entrance in the SSW is ill-defined.

'D' on the end of a spur, is defined by a circular level area about 9.0m diameter within the remains of a stone wall. The entrance is not evident.

The field system is defined by lynchets, field walls and clearance heaps, with clearance thrown into hollows and onto the steeper natural slopes. A typical plot measures about 30.0m by 20.0m.

Visited by OS (A A) 14 October 1969.

Hut 'A' has been destroyed by road improvements, and the W half of hut 'B' has been filled with debris from road widening.

Huts surveyed at 1:10 560.

Visited by OS (I S S) 20 September 1976.

No change to previous field reports.

Surveyed at 1:10 000.

Visited by OS (J M) 28 October 1976.

Mercer notes two enclosures which are presumably additional to those previously recorded but which, to judge by his distribution map, lie very close to them.

The first very near the site of hut 'B', is 'circular', measures 11m N-S by 9m. across and has an entrance in the south. A central ring-bank is concentric to the outer enclosure.

The second enclosure, lying very near hut 'C' is 9.5m in diameter and has no obvious entrance, which leads Mercer to suggest that it may be an enclosed cremation cemetery. (See also NH59NE 9).

Two groups of heather and bracken covered cairns, 8m. in diameter, lie at NH 582 976 and NH 584 974.

R J Mercer 1980.

Mercer's enclosures identify with huts B and C which are as described in the OS reports, except little sign of road debris in 'B' (refer to OS surveyor {I S S} 20 September 1973).

Visited by OS (J M) 10 June 1981.

This field-system has recently been destroyed by the creation of a forestry plantation; the hut-circles survive, however, and are as previously described.

Visited by RCAHMS (JRS) October 1989.