Pitcarmick Burn

Situated within undulating peat-covered moorland on the S side of the Pitcarmick Burn, there are the remains of two Pitcarmick-type buildings, one of which appears to overlie the other.

The W building measures 16.8m WNW-ESE by 6m over a wall reduced to a bank 1.1m in thickness and 0.3m in height. The wall on the SSW is flanked by a drainage gully a short section of which, along with a length of wall appears to be overlain by field clearance. The entrance is in the NE side. The NNE wall of this building partly overlies the second; it measures 25.1m in length by 7.5m wide at the WNW end and 6m wide at the ESE end, over a rubble wall 1m in thickness and 0.3m in height. The S half of the building is sunken and the entrance is midway along the NE side. Immediately outside the entrance there is what appears to be a built-up 'plinth' measuring 7m in length by 2.4m in width. This 'plinth' is revetted on the NE by a line of boulders and it incorporates part of paved pathway which leads to the entrance of an enclosure to the NE. At the NE corner is a small annexe or enclosure measuring 6.9m WNW-ESE by 6m over a wall 1.2m thick and 0.3m high; the wall is built of slabs set on edge.

The enclosure, which lies 20m NE of the buildings, measures 13m NE-SW by 14m internally. Approximately 40m to the E (NO 0631 5615) there are the footings of a building measuring 9.8m NNW-SSE by 6.4m over wall-footings 0.7m in thickness and 0.2m in height. There is no apparent entrance but an annexe or enclosure has been formed at the SSE end where the two side walls of the structure continue down towards a stream. This building is probably a shieling-hut (see NO 05 NE 74).

Visited by RCAHMS (JRS) 14 October 1987.

RCAHMS 1990

RCAHMS surveyed the Pitcarmick-type building at Pitcarmick (West) (NO 0627 5614) in 1987 with self-reducing alidade and plane-table at a scale of 1:250. The plan was redrawn in ink and published at a scale of 1:500 (RCAHMS 1990, Fig. 302.8).