Airtnoch, Fenwick

NS54SW 2 5083 4368.

A Bronze Age cist was found at Hareshawmuir.

CBA 1947

Hareshawmuir is an area of marginal land centred at NS 51 43.

NS 5083 4368. Mrs R Currie (Tayburn Farm, Fenwick) can remember seeing the cist soon after it was discovered by a local landowner in 1946-7. She describes it as being roughly 2 to 3ft square, with four side slabs and no cover stone. It was partly water-filled, and it is not thought that any finds were made, or that a competent authority inspected the cist before it was re-covered.

Mrs Currie was able to indicate (on the ground) within a few feet its position, on a now overgrown stream bank in a wooded enclosure. It is not exposed and limited probing proved negative. It is thought by Mrs Currie that every other local person who was familar with the discovery is now either deceased or moved away. (An account of the find was in the Kilmarnock Standard).

Mr J Hunter (Archaeology Section, Dick Institute, Kilmarnock) knows nothing of this find, but reports that three or four years ago he heard from a resident at nearby Kiwi Lodge that a stone slab was seen in a stream bank in this vicinity. On investigation some time later he found nothing in the area and the informant had since left the district.

Visited by OS (JRL) 7 August 1982

NS 5077 4366 The evaluation was undertaken of a cist discovered during trenching operations by the landowner, but thought to have been excavated by Ludovic Mann in 1946 (NMRS NS54SW 2). The fill of the cist was hand-excavated and comprised backfilled and disturbed deposits. Sieving of the contents of the cist revealed no traces of human remains or artefacts. (GUARD 913).

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