Cairn Of Milduan

NJ43SE 4 4777 3011

See also NJ43SE 5.

(Group centred NJ 477 302) Tumuli (NR)

Site of Engagement between Lulach and Malcolm Canmore AD 1057 (NAT).

OS 6" map, Aberdeenshire, 2nd ed., (1902)

A number of cairns, fancifully associated with a battle of 1057, between Macduff and Lulach. Some were dug by Sir Andrew Keith Hay in 1859 who found nothing of interest. They are suggested to be clearance cairns by MacDonald (1891) who also refers to the remains of crofters' houses in the area supposed to be 'Chief's Graves'. Feachem (1959) describes them as clearance cairns and ruinous foundations of a deserted steading.

Name Book 1866; J MacDonald 1891; R W Feachem 1959.

A minor depopulated settlement of no great importance.

Visited by OS (NKB) 10 October 1967.

This group of monuments is situated on a N-facing slope in an area of rough grazing and grouse moor at an altitude of about 340m OD.

NMRS, MS/712/48.

The area in which these small cairns were recorded is now under dense coniferous forest and no cairns were noted on the date of visit.

Visited by RCAHMS (JRS, MR), 6 July 1999.

(Location formerly cited as NJ 477 302; amended to NJ 4777 3011 and classification to Farmstead; Corn-drying kiln; Sheepfold). This farmstead is situated in a large forestry plantation in the saddle between Hill of Milduan to the NW and Tap o'Noth to the SE. It comprises the remains of two buildings and a kiln. The buildings lie parallel to one another some 4m apart, and measure at least 17m from NNW to SSE by 5.5m transversely over grass-grown stony banks up to 1.3m in thickness and 0.4m in height. Each building contains at least two compartments, but both have been ploughed for forestry and their southern ends destroyed. The kiln is situated 8m N of the buildings and is contained within a grass-grown mound measuring 8m in maximum diameter and about 1.6m in height. The kiln lies at the centre of the mound, with its flue or stoke-hole leading off to the edge of the mound on the SW. The bowl of the kiln measures 1.6m in diameter by 1.5m in depth. A small, subrectangular structure defined by low, grass-grown banks is attached to the SW side of the mound, while a small, amorphous tump on the NE is probably a spoil tip from one of the earlier excavations. There is also a 19th century sheepfold immediately to the SW of the farmstead. D-shaped on plan, it measures about 25m from NE to SW by 20m transversely within a ruinous stone wall.

The farmstead is depicted on a late-18th-century estate plan (SRO: RHP 2258), which shows at least four buildings and annotates them 'Old Stance of Milduan'. The same plan also shows four fields of rig-and-furrow associated with the farmstead, but these were not examined on the date of visit. The first of them, which is annotated 18 Milduan Croft Out, lay on the S flank of the Hill of Milduan (NJ 475 301) and measured just over six acres in extent. The other three, which are respectively annotated 19 Outfield, 20 Outfields of Milduan and 21 Woreout to Heather, lay about 200m NE of the farmstead (NJ 480 302), and collectively measured a little over six-and-a-half acres in extent. On the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Aberdeenshire, 1870, sheet xlii) the site of the farmstead is simply annotated 'Cairn of Milduan, Remains of', presumably a reference to the mound containing the kiln (see NJ43SE 3.00). This map also shows the sheepfold.

Visited by RCAHMS (JRS, MR), 6 July 1999.