Ben Effrey

The remains of this farmstead are situated on the lower, north-west flank of Ben Effrey, some 450m SE of Upper Coul. It is depicted on James Stobie’s map of the counties of Perth and Clackmannan (c.1793), at which time it was known as ‘Boonafrie’, but it is not shown at all on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Perthshire 1866, Sheet CXVIII). The remains evidently represent several phases of use, the final one, appearing to be a small stone-walled enclosure (or large pen) lying parallel and adjacent to the NW side of an earlier subdivided range, its interior set into the natural slope but its walls largely reduced to little more than grass-grown footings. This range formed the SW side of a rectangular enclosure measuring 24m from NE to SW by 14m transversely within a wall reduced to a thick grass-grown bank. Set against the outside of this enclosure at its NE end is a corn-drying kiln, its flue visible on its NW side, and just 10m beyond this to the NE is a platform for a small rectangular building (NN 97797 11809). A largely robbed bank runs from the SE corner of the enclosure for a distance of about 28m to the SSW where it meets a more substantial bank that probably once formed a field boundary. On the NW side of the junction of these two features is another stance for a small structure (NN 97754 11751). A second enclosure, trapezoidal on plan and measuring at least 24m from NE to SW by 17m transversely, stands about 20m to the NW of the range. Its SW end has been largely flattened by more recent cultivation.

The farmstead sits just below a former head-dyke, at the top of an area of rig-and-furrow cultivation that has all but been ploughed flat by more recent cultivation. Where it is measurable, this rig is approximately 5m in breadth on a WNW-ESE orientation. It appears to be overlain by the westerly of the two enclosures associated with the farmstead.

Visited by HES Survey and Recording (JRS, GG) 14 April 2016.

Archaeological features were identified and mapped from airborne remote sensing sources, such as lidar, historic vertical aerial photographs, and 25cm orthophotographs.

Information from HES (OA) 12 May 2017