Upper Suisgill

NC82NE 36 8977 2505

See also NC82NE 35.

The area immediately E of the souterrain (NC82NE 35) was examined in advance of roadworks, the following sequence being recorded.

(i) Evidence of ard cultivation.

(ii) An Iron Age occupation surface surviving in a hollow and bounded to the E by a stone-faced earth bank which appears to have enclosed a substantial area between the present A897 and the Suisgill Burn. To the W of the enclosure bank a series of possible land divisions was investigated.

(iii) Resumption of ard cultivation within the enclosed area. At this stage most of the site to the W of the stone-faced bank was covered by a deep gravel wash from the high ground to the N of the site.

(iv) The surface of the gravel wash was occupied by a series of stone and wooden boundary features, which were in turn covered by a gravel wash.

(v) A scoop was cut into the top of the gravel to provide a platform on which a rectangular post-medieval structure was erected. This building was probably part of the post-medieval settlement which lay to the NE of the area under investigation.

(vi) The northern half of the building was removed to allow the construction of a road, as yet undated, which, by coincidence, followed the route now planned for the realignment.

G J Barclay 1980.

The site now lies beneath the new road.

Visited by OS 30.10.81.

The finds from the excavation are now in Inverness Museum.

G Harden 1985.