Muir

Enclosure with stone clearance heaps at edges. A longhouse, 16m by 5m foundation, with entrance to north. Within mature pine plantation, longhouses, 10m by 5m and 14m by 6m, together with stone clearance heaps. Behind Muir, outside the stone enclosure a longhouse, 12m by 5m, another 8m by 6m with bowed ends, and one other indeterminate structure with bow ends. Stone clearance heaps; this stretch of ground is reported as under cereal cultivation in the last decade of the 19th century.

J S Smith 1987.

NO08NE 8 centred on NO 0665 8960

There are at least five buildings (MAR93 262-8), an oval hut and a kiln (MAR93 263) disposed in two groups across the grassy terrace to the E of the roofed cottage of Muir. The buildings range from 10.7m by 3.9m to 12.3m by 3.7m internally. The E group of buildings (centred on NO 0702 8957; MAR93 262, 264-5) all have faced-rubble footings while two buildings (NO 0664 8961 and NO 0663 8962; MAR93 266-7) to the W have mortared-rubble footings and may represent a late phase of construction. Four of the buildings (MAR93 264-267) are amongst six buildings depicted as roofed on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Aberdeenshire 1869, Sheet xcvii), of which only the two buildings with the mortared-rubble footings (MAR93 266-7) were depicted as roofed by the 2nd edition of the OS 6-inch map (Aberdeenshire 1900, Sheet xcvii). The remarkably small kiln (MAR93 263) is butted onto a field bank within the eastern-most group of buildings and has a bowl measuring 1.25m in diameter and no barn. The hut (MAR93 268) measures 5.6m by 2.2m within a faced-rubble bank up to 1.1m in thickness and 0.3m in height.

Ploughed-down, relatively straight rig measuring up to 8m between furrows, is visible in the grassland between the two groups of buildings, at the edges of which there are fragmentary banks and clearance lines. These ridged areas coincide with improved ground depicted on the 1st and 2nd editions of the OS 6-inch maps.

(MAR93 262-8)

Visited by RCAHMS (DCC) 23 June 1993