Cragganester

NN63NE 36 65548 38924

Farmstead at NN 6555 3891

A farmstead, comprising two unroofed buildings of which one is a long building with two compartments and one unroofed structure is depicted on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Perthshire 1867, sheet lxix). Three unroofed buildings are shown on the current edition of the OS 1:10000 map (1981).

Information from RCAHMS (AKK) 23 February 1998.

This farmstead was surveyed and described by Edinburgh University Centre for Field Archaeology in 1989.

(see RCAHMS MS625/5 and DC14939CO).

NN 65548 38924. This farmstead stands on the E bank of the Allt a' Choire Chireinich. It comprises at least four buildings, one of them a kiln barn, and two enclosures; in addition, there are two more kilns, possibly limekilns, about 90m to the S at NN 6556 3879. The principal building (BL00 522) has been extensively rebuilt as part of a later sheepfold (now disused), but it originally measured 27.4m from ENE to WSW by 5.5m transversely over rubble walls best preserved at the WSW gable, which stands 2m high. An outshot extends 2.2m from the ENE end. The interior has been divided into two compartments, each with an entrance on the SSE opening onto a revetted terrace, in front of which a hollow marks the site of a midden. Behind the building, and enclosure, irregular on plan but measuring about 60m by 45m, extends to the NE.

The second building (BL00 523) stands about 20m to the S, at right angles to the first. It measures 14.2m by 3.8m within walls up to 1.3m in height. This building has also been divided into two compartments; the larger (at the SSE end) has opposed entrances, indicating that it served as a barn, while the smaller has a single entrance in the ENE side. Attached to the WSW side of this building, and lying between it and the burn, there are the remains of the second enclosure, defined by stony banks and measuring about 30m by 13m. The kiln barn (BL00 524) stands about 15m to the E of the second building. It measures 7.8m from N to S by 3.3m transversely within walls up to 1m in height. There are opposed entrances towards the S end, and the kiln bowl, which measures 2.8m in diameter and 1.9m in depth, is at the N end. The fourth building (BL00 525), which may have served as a cold store, stands to the N of the kiln barn, between it and the ENE end of the first building. It has been set into rising ground on the NE and faced internally with rubble; it measures internally 4m in length by 2.2m in breadth and 1.4m in height, and is open it the SW end. Immediately to the SW there are fragmentary remains of what may be a fifth building, possibly a small outhouse.

The two possible limekilns stand about 10m apart. The better-preserved example is that to the W (BL00 521); it measures 2.1m in diameter and 1m in depth within a rubble wall and opens to the NW. The other kiln (BL00 520) measures 2.1m in diameter and 0.6m in depth within a wall reduced to a stony bank, and opens to the N.

The first three buildings described above (BL00 522-4) are depicted unroofed on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Perthshire 1867, sheet lxix). The second edition of that map (Perthshire 1900, sheet lxix NW) shows two of them (BL00 522-3), but by that date the principal building appears to have been converted into a sheepfold, and an enclosure had been added along its SSE side.

(BL00 520-5, 2693)

Visited by RCAHMS (AGCH, MFTR) 7 July 2000.