Sandray, Sheader
Building(S) (Period Unassigned), Farmstead (Period Unassigned), Shell Midden (Period Unassigned), Unidentified Pottery (Neolithic)
Site Name Sandray, Sheader
Classification Building(S) (Period Unassigned), Farmstead (Period Unassigned), Shell Midden (Period Unassigned), Unidentified Pottery (Neolithic)
Canmore ID 78851
Site Number NL69SW 7
NGR NL 6312 9200
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/78851
- Council Western Isles
- Parish Barra
- Former Region Western Isles Islands Area
- Former District Western Isles
- Former County Inverness-shire
NL69SW 7 6312 9200
Formerly also entered as NL69SW 16.
SY 14: At this site a tell-like mound, severely eroding, yielded evidence of nine stratified phases of occupation. The earliest is a large shell-midden with no visible artefact material, overlain by a stone-founded building. One or both phases may be associated with Neolithic pottery from the site. Sterile sand separates these levels from an Iron Age occupation, in turn overlain by two phases of medieval stone buildings. Further sand deposits are overlain by four phases of post-Medieval buildings, the last of which is thought to be associated with the short-lived re-occupation of Sandray by some of the Vatersay raiders of 1908. (See also NL69SW 16.)
P Foster 1991; NMRS MS/595/6
(previously recorded as NL69SW 16)
Sheader: Name applies to "a piece of ground formerly cultivated".
Name Book 1878
SY13: (NL6312 9200) Group of five stone-built houses, and earlier foundations, on an artificial hillock, at Sheader. (see also NL69SW 7.)
NMRS MS/595/6, 9
Two unroofed buildings and an enclosure, all of which are attached to the wall of a field, are depicted on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Inverness-shire, Hebrides, Barra etc. 1880, sheet lxvi). Two unroofed buildings, one of which has three compartments, are shown on the current edition of the OS 1:10000 map (1971).
Information from RCAHMS (SAH) 17 June 1997.
