Crock Cleuch

NT81NW 41.01 from 83343 17679 to 83314 17621

(Also see NMRS 41)

Two settlements are situated on gently sloping ground on the N side of Crook Cleuch at a point where the narrow steep-sided valley opens out onto the valley of the Calroust Burn. Both settlements were excavated by Steer and Keeney in 1939; the E site is described under (NT81NW 41).

The W settlement lies some 26m downhill of the previously described monument and occupies a similar position overlooking the Crock Cleuch. Overall it is not as well-preserved as that to the E, and the W end of the enclosure is slight, perhaps the effect of the construction of a sheep shelter immediately beyond. Nevertheless the layout of both settlements would appear to be remarkably similar. The W settlement measures 30m from NE to SW by 22m within a boulder-faced rubble wall spread to some 4m in width. The entrance may lie in the WSW where the bank spreads to some 6m in width, suggestive of the terminals visible in the E site. To the N of the entrance the settlement is marked only by a scarp dropping down to a sunken yard area in the interior of enclosure. This yard area, which occupies the W half of the enclosure, is now waterlogged. On the E side a scarp rises to a level platform, again occupied by a hut-circle occupying the centre of the leading edge. As in the E site, the entrance to the hut-circle was, again, on the W.

Traces of cultivation are spread over the moderately steep to steep S-facing hillside immediately NNW. The cultivation comprises three parallel lynchets. A ruinous stone dyke appears to enclose the lynchets on the N and E sides though the contemporaneity of these two elements cannot be established. These elements have been linked with the two settlements by association though the lynchets may form part of a much larger area of unenclosed cultivation which spread over the W side of Pudding Law to the S of the Crock Cleuch.

Information from RJ Mercer (University of Edinburgh) 2 April 1985

RCAHMS MS 2598. No. 44/568