Ballinreigh

NN93NW 13.07 centred on 90 37

The shoulder of the hill on the SW side of Glen Fender is marked by a distinct change from grass to heather vegetation on the line of the upper limit of the Improvement Period drystone-walled fields. The heather-covered hillside to the NW of the Improvement Period fields is littered with small cairns, measuring up to 5m in diameter and 0.4m in height, occuring in three relatively discrete clusters (NN 905 377, NN 905 378 and NN 914 380; see also NN 93NW 13.12). The small cairns are situated on an irregular terrace on which there is also a field-system characterised by sub-rectangular plots laid out across the contour and measuring up to 110m by 150m. Changes in the line of the upper edge of these fields suggest at least two distinct phases of use. On the side of the grass-covered ridge to the S of Newton of Ballinreigh (NN 908 377) there are similar sub-rectangular plots which appear to have survived improvement. To the W of Newton of Ballinreigh, the downhill sides of these plots have been truncated by a series of larger oval or sub-rectangular fields, which seem to characterise the pre-Improvement field-systems associated with the fermtouns and farms. Only fragments of rig are visible in these fields which have largely been improved. Small patches of rig are also visible on the heather-covered ground, with visibility limited by the maturity of much of the heather. Cutting across the sub-rectangular fields on the higher terraces, but apparently respecting the pre-Improvement fields is a trackway, braided in places, which leaves the Crieff to Dalnacardoch military road (NN93NW 14) to the SSE of Newton of Ballinreigh and runs up into the mouth of Glen Fender before fading away in the rank vegetation and increasingly boggy ground. A scatter of buildings lie within this palimcest of landuse remains and are described below (NN 94NW 13.08 to 13.12).

Visited by RCAHMS (DCC) 8 December 1993