Mossfennan

NT12NW 7 1120 2974.

(NT 1120 2974) Settlement (NR)

(Undated) OS map.

A scooped settlement is situated on the SE slopes of Worm Hill. It measures 130ft by 80ft within a wall which is now best preserved on the SW, where it appears as a low turf-covered bank. The court, measuring 85ft by 30ft is featureless except for a hollow 25ft in length, 12ft in breadth and open to the SW, which lies immediately SW of the entrance and which is probably not an original feature.

The platform, measuring 100ft by 25ft, is large enough to have accommodated several timber houses. When the NE part was excavated in 1961, the ground plan of one house was recovered. This comprised eight post-holes lying on the circumference of a circle 21ft in diameter, and a central post-hole accompanied by another at a distance of 2ft to the E. The rocky, uneven floor of the house was partly covered with pieces of shale derived from adjacent outcrops. A fireplace consisting of a shallow pit, 2ft in length and 1ft 3in. in width, was situated 5ft SW

of the central post-hole.

The small finds included part of the upper stone of a bun-shaped rotary quern with a slightly concave grinding surface, narrow feed-pipe and V-section hopper- a type assignable to the 1st or 2nd century AD. There were also fragments of two other rotary querns and a pounder. One of the slate slabs found on the floor was decorated with scratched linear designs.

(Information from R W Feachem notebook 1958, 46)

RCAHMS 1967, visited 1961; K A Steer 1961

As described.

Re-surveyed at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (WDJ) 29 July 1963 and (IA) 15 September 1972

Bun-shaped quern. RMS HD 1891.

E J MacKie 1971.