Balluig North

Site visits taking measurements and photographs.

This township occupies a grassy, boulder-strewn clearing in natural woodland at 220mOD. The site, bounded on the W by a small burn and on the E by the Lagmore-Chapelton road, is swathed in bracken during the summer. It comprises at least seven buildings, a kiln and a large, irregular enclosure.

The dominant feature is an enclosure of irregular shape, surrounded by a dry-stone wall 1.2m thick at the base and standing up to 0.9m high. The wall becomes a revetment on the E side, creating a flat and level interior. The entrance is at the NW, where there is a secondary enclosure bounded by a wall of boulders and turf, with a striking rounded boulder at the N corner. A probable outer enclosure to the E of the main enclosure is marked by boulders and faint traces of turf wall.

The buildings survive as low turf-and-boulder footings whose poor state of preservation prevents the identification of openings and other features. Buildings 1, 2 and 3 on the N side of the settlement are partly scooped into the slope of the ground and each has a clearly-defined drainage ditch on the uphill (W) side. There is a possible midden pit SE of Building 1. Three more buildings (4, 5 and 6), and faint, partial traces of a probable further building (7) lie to the S. In Building 4 there is a notable slab, presumably a hearth-back, set against the inner face of the N wall. Two small enclosures, defined by walls of substantial boulders and turf, lie between Buildings 4 and 5, and to the E of building 4. The E enclosure has a conspicuous flat stone lying within it.

A kiln is inserted into the lip of the slope above the burn on the NW margin of the site.

A sunken track leads downhill from the NE boundary of the settlement, to join the Lagmore-Chapelton road. Beyond the modern road is a level terrace that may have been arable land belonging to the settlement. This cultivable land is bounded at the W (below the road) by an irregular straggling wall of large boulders.

The settlement is not recorded on the 1st Edition of the Ordnance Survey six-inch map (Banffshire, surveyed 1869, published 1872, sheet xxix), but William Roy’s Military Survey of Scotland, 1747 -1755, shows an unnamed settlement at approximately this location. Two unroofed buildings and two enclosures are shown on the modern OS map.

Information from SRP Strath Avon Survey, August 2011.