Upper Wellwood

NS62SE 1 6657 2416.

(NS 665 241) A structure, rather more than 275m OD and about 1.6km S of Wellwood House, was excavated in 1913 and re-explored in 1924. The excavation reports suggest that it was a hut circle, and this interpretation was accepted by Childe. Ritchie, stating that though the present disturbed nature of the site makes a firm re-interpretation impossible, this was probably a ring cairn. Baird first saw this as a "green patch with a few stones appearing here and there, suggesting the site of a cairn but proving later to be the remains of a hut circle".

It consisted of a bank of stones some 0.46m wide enclosing an area about 5.6m in diameter. Apparently within this area and extending beyond the bank was "a rough pavement of water-worn stones of all shapes, most of a weight which a man could carry" with "a large quantity of small stones, and debris, which filled the spaces between the uneven stones and made a more or less even floor". There seems little doubt that were this discovered today it would not be described as the pavement of a house but as a low cairn. The remains of "a fireplace paved with flat stones, with others set on edge to form a back", found rather off-centre may perhaps be interpreted as a disturbed cist while the fragments of a beaker (now in the NMAS, ACC Nos: EGA 10-14) found "near the fireplace" may have accompanied a burial.

J N G Ritchie 1970; J Baird 1914; A Fairbairn 1927; D L Clarke 1970; J

N G Ritchie and A MacLaren 1973; Proc Soc Antiq Scot 1962

NS 6655 2412. When seen in 1954, this structure appeared as a turf bank 13.2m in diameter, 2.5m wide and 0.6m high, overgrown with heather. A number of flat stones were visible in the centre of the circle, and there was a flat area to the NE outside the circle.

Visited by OS (JFC) 29 July 1954

NS 6657 2416. This site appears as a heather-covered and mutilated stone-banked enclosure 14.5m in diameter overall. The bank varies from 2.0m to 5.0m wide, up to 0.8m high and encloses a disturbed interior. There is a 7.0m gap in the north-east and a small ruined structure, probably a sheep-pen, in the north west corner. Within this bank and separated from it by a 1.5m wide trench, is a concentric ring of large stones, like kerb stones of a cairn, 5.5m in diameter.

The site has similarities to the four structures to the NE (NS62NE 6), and is probably the remains of a cairn.

Surveyed at 1:10 000.

Visited by OS (BS) 13 July 1978