Tulach Buaile Assery

ND06SE 12 0575 6019.

(ND 0575 6019) Tulach Buaile Assery (Brough) (NR)

OS 6" map, Caithness, 2nd ed., (1907)

Tulach Buaile Assery is a turf-covered long horned cairn of the Orkney-Cromarty group, with a Camster-type chamber.

The body of the cairn is about 204ft long, 42ft wide at the W end and 65ft wide at the E end; this end is about 12ft high and virtually intact. At the W end fairly clearly defined horns project obliquely an additional 20ft. The horns at the E end were not visible in 1956 but in 1910 they were about 26ft long. There are the remains of a possible chamber 26ft in from the W end of the cairn, and a recent hole halfway up the NE side of the E end opens into another chamber, now partially collapsed.

RCAHMS 1911; A S Henshall 1963.

This long horned chambered cairn is as described.

Resurveyed at 1:2500.

Visited by OS (R D) 3 November 1964.

(ND 0575 6019) Tulach Buaile Assery (NAT) Chambered Cairn (NR)

OS 1:10,000 map, (1975)

Tulach Buaile Assery - a chambered cairn as described by Miss Henshall.

Revised at 1:10,000.

Visited by OS (N K B) 18 September 1981.

Evaluation; excavation

NH 030 619 to NH 064 594 In June and July 2005, a series of

archaeological features were investigated that would be disturbed

HIGHLAND

or destroyed by the upgrading of the A832 between Glen Docherty Viewpoint and Kinlochewe. A baseline study had been prepared in 2001, and updated in 2003 (DES 2004, 73). The features investigated comprised numerous field banks and/or walls, an old building near Glen Docherty, a possible levee with attached scoops, and a kiln site with a nearby hollow. Several other sites were subject to photographic and GPS survey. The excavations dismissed a possible bloomery mound site as being entirely natural.

The site of a possible levee and scoops was investigated, lying close to the Glen Docherty Burn (NH 0577 6017). The excavations revealed the levee to be natural. Two scoops were identified during the investigation, though only one of them was shown to be anthropogenic in origin, containing a thick layer of charcoal across its base, measuring 3.7 x 2.5m and 0.5m deep. It is suggested that this was a charcoal-burning site, based on the remains found within the scoop, the proximity of the site to the burn and the location of a bloomery site close by.

Report lodged with Highland SMR and NMRS.

Sponsor: Highland Council, Transport, Environmental and Community Services.

S Badger 2005