Brand's Well, Backtack

NJ44SE 36 4680 4184

This farmstead, situated on a gentle S-facing slope about 750m NNE of Backtack, comprises three buildings, their walls reduced to stony banks about 1.2m in thickness and no more than 0.2m in height. Overall the largest of the buildings measures 19m from NE to SW by 5.5m transversely; it has two compartments and there is also an outshot at the NE end. The other two buildings are considerably smaller and are set roughly parallel to the main building immediately to the SE. The surrounding area is obscured by gorse thickets, but in the gaps fragments of enclosure banks are still visible; in places these banks appear to consist of a scatter of stones with a groove down the centre, perhaps resulting from the existence of a fence rather than the construction of a bank or wall. Apart from the bank, the only other feature noted in the vicinity was a small cairn on the gentle W-facing slope immediately W of the Wood of Milleath some 100m to the NE (NJ 4690 4190).

Visited by RCAHMS (SPH) 1 May 1990.

This project is part of the Forestry Commission's management strategy to recognise and safeguard sites in advance of timber operations that may be potentially damaging to the archaeological resource.

This historic landscape survey was undertaken at Milleath.

C Shepherd 2009

NJ 4696 4184

Clearance cairn which sits on the forest boundary. Next to this is a hollow-way heading at 110° and probably related to the track depicted running from Broadland on an 18th-century estate plan. The hollow-way is

cut by a possibly 19th-century dyke.

NJ 4715 4160 Milleath Possible substantial clearance cairn, c8m across.

Archive: Aberdeenshire Council SMR and FCS, Aberdeenshire

Funder: Aberdeenshire Forestry Commission

C Shepherd 2009