Dalhalvaig

NC85NE 3 894 554.

(NC 894 555) Tumuli (NR). Site of Battle (NR)

OS 6"map, Sutherland, 1st ed., (1873)

A field system consisting of clearance heaps, banks, walling and alleged hut-circles (RCAHMS 1911) stretching for 1/4 mile along the slope of a west-facing hill. A tradition of a 10th century battle between the Scots and the Norse has been attached to the clearance heaps which are said to be the burial cairns of the dead of the battle (T Pennant 1774). They appear to be of two different types; the larger, of bare stone, 4.8m to 7.6m in diameter with central depressions as if from partial excavation, probably belong, along with the field banks, to a depopulated settlement. The smaller clearance heaps are typical of those associated with hut-circles and heaps linked by rubble walls are probably contemporary with these (OS field surveyor [WDJ]). RCAHMS mentions various small "huts" but these appear to be only quarried clearance heaps (OS field surveyor [WDJ]).

T Pennant 1774; RCAHMS 1911, visited 1909; Visited by OS (W D J) 28 April 1960.

This is a field system with one, possibly two, associated hut circles. The certain hut at NC 8931 5547, above the NE bank of a stream and completely heather-covered, is 6.0m in diameter inside a much reduced wall spread to 1.5m. The entrance is no longer evident. The field system, covering seven hectares, on the west and south slopes of the hillside and delimited to the north and north-east by a sinuous wall or bank, comprises stone clearance heaps spaced from 8.0m to 15.0m apart with many linked by either stony banks of cleared stones, or lynchets; a field plot 16.0m by 9.0m was noted. The field system adopts a rectangular pattern of cleared ground lying up and down the slope on the longer axis. The huts alleged by the RCAHMS are merely stone clearance heaps extensively mutilated. At NC 8949 5543 within the field system is a ruinous enclosure of boulder slab construction that may be another hut though very oval in form. It is slightly levelled into the slope and measures about 7.5m ENE-WNW by 4.5m internally, though the longer dimension is obscured by a disturbed clearance heap, similar to others nearby, at the east end. The wall is generally reduced to a low, overgrown 2.0m spread and an entrance cannot be identified.

Surveyed at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (J M) 25 May 1977.