Boyken Burn

Boyken Burn 1 NY 314 893 to NY 311 890 NY38NW 29

The settlement of Boyken extends across a SE-facing slope at the entrance to the valley of the Boyken Burn and comprises at least twenty-nine platform-buildings, including five set parallel to the contour, Around the settlement enclosed rig-and­ furrow cultivation covers an area of about 12ha. The lands of 'Botkane' are on record in about 1376, and in 1391 a chapel (NY38NW 17) was founded at Boyken. The settlement is depicted in Blaeu's Atlas in 1654, on an estate plan of 1718 and on Roy's Map in the middle of the 18th century, but was abandoned before 1810.

RCAHMS 1981, visited February 1981

(Blaeu 1654b; SRO, RHP 9629; Roy 1747-55, sheet 6/2; NMRS, DFD/156/1; Armstrong 1883, 99, Appendix pp. viii-ix, no. iii)

RCAHMS surveyed the west farmstead at Boyken Burn (NY38NW 29) on 28 March 1984 with plane-table and self-reducing alidade at a scale of 1:200. The plan was redrawn in ink in 1996 and published at a scale of 1:1000 (RCAHMS 1997, Fig. 242).

RCAHMS surveyed the house platform at Boyken Burn (NY 38NW 29) on 29 March 1984 with plane-table and alidade at a scale of 1:200.

RCAHMS surveyed the east farmstead at Boyken Burn (NY38NW 29) on 27 March 1984 with plane-table and self-reducing alidade at a scale of 1:200. The plan was later redrawn in ink and published at a scale of 1:1000 (RCAHMS 1997, Fig. 242).

RCAHMS surveyed the central farmstead at Boyken Burn (NY38NW 29) on 27 March 1984 with plane-table and self-reducing alidade at a scale of 1:200. The plan was later redrawn in ink and published at a scale of 1:1000 (RCAHMS 1997, Fig. 242).

NY 314 893 NY38NW 29

The field-system can be seen to extend into the pasture field immediately W of the modern improved fields which lie immediately downslope from the fermtoun.

Visited by RCAHMS (PC), 16 May 1992.

Listed as fermtoun.

RCAHMS 1997.

An archaeological evaluation was undertaken by CFA Archaeology Ltd, a desk based assessment and walk over survey (May 29th 2014) was conducted

The historic environment record within the Site Boundary is relatively limited, although there is some potential for the proposed development site to contain previously unknown heritage assets from at least the later prehistoric period onwards, given the historic landscape character of the wider area. Taking this into account, the archaeological potential of the proposed development site is considered to be low.

A summary assessment, on a site by site basis, of the predicted effects on the settings of assets within a 10km radius where the blade tip ZTV indicates that there would be theoretical views of one or more turbines

information from Héléna Gray, (CFA Archaeology Ltd), August 2015

OASIS ID: cfaarcha1-278420

Fields, Buildings and Tenants

The remains comprise some thirty buildings with their associated yards situated in clusters along a dyke which separates them from what must have been the principal fields of the toun. These were laid out under a system of rig-and-furrow cultivation, though the cultivation ridges have long been levelled. Uphill from the buildings is a palimpsest of fields and enclosures which were probably used for livestock or periodic cultivation, and on the western edge of the site there is a prehistoric settlement with cultivation terraces to either side overlain by rig-and-furrow. A second prehistoric settlement lies on the south side of the Boyken Burn and the overall impression is of continuity in the use of the land.

As elsewhere in Eskdale the buildings were constructed upon artificially created platforms usually set end-on to the slope, but occasionally, as with the buildings of the upper cluster at Boyken, set parallel to the contour. It is assumed that this was to facilitate drainage in an area of notoriously high rainfall. Of the buildings themselves all that remain are turf-covered stone wall-footings upon which low walls of turf or turf and stone were formerly constructed. The walls were not load bearing and the thatched roof was probably supported on a framework of crucks or couples, pairs of timbers set into or at the base of opposite walls and joined at the apex. Where timber was plentiful it would have been possible to use single timbers, but here in Upper Eskdale it is more likely that several shorter lengths pinned together with wooden dowels would have been used. In 1627 a Cheshire gentleman journeying into Scotland spent two nights in Langholm, just 7km south of Boyken. He and his companions spent their first night in a dwelling where the fire was ‘in the midst of the house’, and their second ‘in a poor thatched house the wall of it being one course of stones, another of sods of earth’, and which ‘had a door of wicker rods’.

17th-century rent books of Buccleuch Estate, to which Boyken then belonged, and the Hearth Tax returns of 1691 allow us to name the householders who probably occupied these buildings. In 1691 they were ‘Andrew Little,’ ‘Wm Scott yr,’ Jo Scott yr,’ ‘George Little,’ and ‘Andrey Littl,’ who each possessed one hearth, suggesting that there were five dwelling houses in the toun.

Abandonment

Whilst the Agricultural Improvements may be responsible for the largest number of abandoned settlement sites in the hills of southern Scotland, the result of amalgamating several tenancies into one farm, other factors have been involved in earlier abandonments. From the late Middle Ages onwards climatic deterioration was probably the cause of some abandonments, although it is not until the 17th century that this becomes well documented. For example, in late February and early March 1674 thirteen ‘drifty days’ resulted in the deaths of most of the sheep in the neighbouring parish of Eskdalemuir. This was possibly the same exceptional storm that led the Duke of Buccleuch in 1675 to petition the Privy Council that most of his tenants’ cattle were dead and much of his estate was waste and unpossessed. Rural life in earlier centuries could be precarious.

Peter Corser - Field Officer, Heritage Directorate