Buntait

NH33SE 1.03 3952 3127

Part of a settlement of 13 stone-walled huts (A - N) and a contemporary field system. The interior of each hut is circular. The entrances, where visible, are in the SE. Huts C - L, and part of the field system, are mutilated by forestry ploughing.

'M' is c. 8.0m in diameter within a wall spread to c. 5.5m widening to c. 7.5m at the clubbed entrance.

'N' (unpublished) is c. 10.0m in diameter within a denuded wall spread to c. 3.5m widening to c. 5.0m in the S. The position of the entrance cannot be ascertained. Around the N arc are several outer facing stones.

The field system, comprising field walls, lynchets, and stone clearance heaps, is best preserved in the vicinity of huts 'A' and 'M', where two fields measure c. 50.0m by 30.0m and 40.0m by 16.0m respectively.

Huts 'B' - 'M' surveyed at 1:2500. (Visited by OS (N K B) 11 December 1964) (Visible on RAF air photograph RAF/541/A/395:3163-4)

Extent of field system delineated on 6" sheet.

Survey Diagram.

Visited by OS (N K B) 5 October 1970

There are two hut-circles, some small cairns, and four boundary dykes in improved grassland about 450m ENE of Upperton Farm. The hut-circles and small cairns have been recorded as part of NH33SE 1 by the OS and labelled M and N respectively, but are separated here because of the dislocation of the site by afforestation. The former measures 9.5m in diameter within a wall reduced to a stony bank, but with some external facings visible on the W. The bank measures a maximum of 3m in thickness and 0.6m in height on either side of the entrance on the SE (URQ97 413). The latter hut-circle is oval on plan and measures 12.1m from NW to SE by 11.3m transversely within a stony bank 2.6m in thickness and 0.4m in height. Its entrance is on the SE, but it has been damaged by the placing of a feeder bin on the S terminal of the wall (URQ97 412). The small cairns extend over an area measuring 200m from E to W by 100m transversely. Four different boundary dykes describe a curvilinear course across the site, of which two are cut by the 19th century dyke NH43SW 73) that runs across the pasture from SSW to NNE. These two appear to represent different phases of a head-dyke that also encompasses the township at Cnoc nan Ceard to the E (NH43SW 14). A third describes a sinuous course just N of the two hut-circles, and a fourth sinuous dyke runs in and out of the conifer plantation on the N. (URQ97 412-413)

Visited by RCAHMS (PJD) 4 September 1997

A fragment of an E to W running dyke to the N of the hut-circles within the forestry was noted during a pre-afforestation survey by Wordsworth Archaeological Services.

Information from J Wordsworth 6 December 1999

NMRS MS 2007 no.26