Elghope Burn

NT82SW 63 from 82362 24275 to 82329 24050

A farmstead comprising one unroofed long building with an attached enclosure is depicted on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Roxburghshire 1863, sheet xvi) and on the current edition of the OS 1:10000 map (1988), where the building is shown with two compartments.

Information from RCAHMS (SAH) 24 July 2000

Lying on a moderate NW-facing slope at the foot of Black Hill and overlooking the Elghope Burn, there is a farmstead comprising the ruins of one building with an adjoining enclosure. The building measures 19.6m from N to S by 8m overall with faced-rubble walls measuring between 0.3m and 0.5m in height. The wall-faces are obscured by tumble except on the N and E. Internally, there are two compartments, each entered separately by doors in the W wall. The party wall between the two compartments is the thickest in the structure.

The building forms the W side of a trapezoidal enclosure, measuring 32.6m by 32.4m within a bank standing up to 0.5m in height. There is an external ditch which is most pronounced on the N and E. To the E of the enclosure, remnants of a field-system extend over the moderate predominantly NW-facing slopes to the E. The field-system comprises two roughly parallel field-banks extending up to the boundary dyke following the ridge between the Elghope Burn and its unnamed tributary to the NE. The N field-bank commences at the SE end of the enclosure at NT 8229 2417, and runs uphill for about 107m, terminating before the modern boundary dyke at NT 8238 2417. The bank is 1.5m wide and 0.3m high. Commencing at NT 8230 2409 and terminating at NT 8244 2410, the second field-bank lies 74m to the S of the first. It is 132m long with a marked kink in its course between 68m and 100m from its W end before resuming its original E to W orientation only to vanish shortly before the modern boundary dyke. Both banks appear to overlie an area of cross contour rig. Recent ploughing to the N of the modern boundary dyke has removed all traces of this cultivation, but vertical aerial photographs (RAF 106 G/Scot/UK 121, frames 3144-5: 20 June 1946) record that the cultivation originally extended over an area measuring between 130m and 170m from E to W by 230m. The N edge of the cultivation abuts a further of rig, on a N to S axis (NT82SW 64) although the relationship between the two elements could not be established; a pattern repeated to the E where the rig abuts a further area of cultivation (NT82SW 52). The rigs average 4.3m in width between furrows 0.6m wide and 0.15m deep.

Information from RJ Mercer (University of Edinburgh) 25 March 1987

RCAHMS MS 2598, No. 6/040