Cor Tulloch

ND13NE 1 1513 3553

(ND 1513 3553) Cor Tulloch (NR)

Stone Cist containing Human Remains found (NAT)

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

'Only part of a wall visible. A number of large stones are lying about. It was partly destroyed about ten years ago for building purposes.' The cist is noted but no details are given.

Name Book 1871.

Cor Tulloch is a pear-shaped enclosure, aligned NW-SE, 86 by 73ft, surrounded by a wall about 5 1/2ft thick, faced with large stones and still some 1 1/2ft high. Parallel with the inner side of the N wall there is a structure roofed with slabs of stone about 6 by 3 by 1ft, their inner ends resting on upright stones. There is now only about 1 1/2ft headroom and only four of the roofing slabs remain. The structure is about 42 by 15ft. A similar structure parallels the SE side of the enclosure, but lacks any roofing slabs.

Some 12ft inward towards the centre of the enclosure, from the SE end of the northern 'gallery', there are signs of an inner circular wall enclosing an area about 27ft in diameter. Rising from this foundation, at the NW, are two pointed stones about 4 to 5ft in height above ground level, while a third, similar stone rises from what may be the base of an inner wall surrounding a circular enclosure about 16ft in diameter. There is an entrance to the main enclosure on the NW, 7ft wide.

RCAHMS 1911, visited 1910.

As described by the RCAHMS.

Visited by OS (R L) 10 May 1967.

(ND 1513 3553) Cor Tulloch (NAT) Settlement (NR)

OS 1:10,000 map, (1976)

Cor Tulloch (name verified) is a nucleated settlement surviving as a robbed, turf-covered mound of stones, 32.0m NW-SE by 30.0m transversely and 1.5m high, which contains the remains of three structures (A-C on plan by the previous field investigator).

A and B are aisled rectangular houses, in which little is exposed but some pillar stones and lintel slabs, most of which are displaced. There is little evidence of wall facing and in consequence precise measurements are unobtainable (on the plan the pecked lines representing 'vague traces of walling' are highly speculative; house A appears to extent westwards to encompass the L-shaped feature shown on plan.) All that remains of structure C are three upright stone pillars around the rim of a depression with no wall-faces showing; it is therefore impossible to determine the plan without excavation.

A boulder-faced wall, which is exposed intermittently around the S arc of the mound, may originally have enclosed the settlement, but the margins are disturbed by ploughing and robbing.

Visited by OS (N K B) 13 December 1982.