Klibreck

NC53SE 3.00 centred 5908 3375

NC53SE 3.01 598 342 Farmstead

NC53SE 3.02 587 337 Enclosures

See also NC53SE 4 and NC53SE 5.

(Centred NC 5908 3875) Klibrig is a settlement of about four houses, on the W side of Kilbreck Burn, with arable.

W Roy 1747-55

A large area of depopulation with the mutilated foundations of many buildings and enclosures. The buildings vary in size from about 5m by 13m to 25m by 4m, the walls being barely 0.1m high. Within the area are several stretches of stone walls and fragments of turf banks together with many stone clearance heaps. The building at NC 5939 3389 has a kiln in its S end, built into the slope.

Visited by OS (WDJ) 6 May 1961

Klibreck, a deserted township as described by the previous field investigator. Vague traces of strip cultivation are visible in places around the building foundations.

Visited by OS (JB) 27 June 1980

A township comprising twenty-nine unroofed buildings, twelve enclosures, areas of cultivation and a head-dyke is depicted on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Sutherland 1878, sheet liv). To the NE is a farmstead (3.01: 598 342) and to the SW is an enclosure (3.02: 587 337). Fifty-seven unroofed buildings, eighteen enclosures and a head-dyke are shown on the current edition of the OS 1:10,560 map (1963).

Information from RCAHMS (SAH) 10 October 1995.

NC 5908 3375 Walkover survey in April 2006 recorded 95 features within the head-dyke that defines the township, including the remains of longhouses, kailyards, outbuildings, cultivation rigs, enclosures, at least one mill, a kiln barn and several possible shieling structures, as well as the site of the early Christian chapel and a previously unrecorded boulder bearing 114 cup marks. On the basis of the survey results, it has been possible to propose a sequence for the township's development. The trial excavations targeted several potentially early structures identified during the walkover survey, with trenches opened over the interior and walls of four buildings. The results showed that while three of the buildings had gone out of use at some point during the township's occupation, one (46) contained evidence of long-term use that may have begun in the medieval period and appears to have continued until the township's clearance in 1807. This included three phases of hearth, the second of which was associated with coarse pottery, and evidence for the destruction and rebuilding of one wall.

Archive to be deposited in NMRS. Report lodged with Highland Council SMR and NMRS.

Sponsor: Historic Scotland, The Russell Trust, The Hunter Trust, Glasgow University, Assumption College.

O Lelong, 2006.