Loch Of Camster

ND24SE 10 263 440.

Centred at ND 263 440 is a settlement of three circular stone-walled huts 'A' 'B' & 'C' and a circular stone-walled enclosure 'D'.

Hut 'A' is scarcely visible due to heavy peat growth and measures about 9.0m in diameter. The entrance is not evident.

Hut 'B', the best preserved, is obscured in the N arc by at least 0.3m of peat but elsewhere an old excavation has exposed in places the inner wall face, giving an internal diameter of 6.5m, and the entrance which is in the SSE. The E side of the entrance is obscured by heather, but the W side is flanked by two stones and here an inner and outer facing stone give a wall thickness of 1.3m. Inside the hut against the E arc about 2.0m from the entrance is a slab on edge set at right angles to the line of the inner face, similar to hut 'A' of ND26NW 6. There are several loose stones in the interior.

Hut 'C' measures 8.0m in diameter between the centres of a peat-covered wall spread to an indeterminate width. The ill-defined entrance is in the SSE.

'D' is set into the base of an E-facing slope and measures internally about 3.5m in diameter. One or two stones of the inner face are visible in the S arc. The entrance in the E arc is flanked on its S side by a stone on edge. This appears to be too small to be a house but it is undoubtedly contemporary with the settlement.

There is no evidence of contemporary cultivation in the area.

Surveyed at 1/10 000.

Visited by OS (I S S) 11 April 1972.

(Centred ND 262 440) Settlement (NR)

OS 1:10,000 map, (1976)

ND24SE 10 ND 26253 44089, 26284 44027, 26270 44008, 26338 44058

A group of at least three hut-circles is situated on a ridge overlooking Loch Camster immediately to the E and the Lybster to Watten public road to the W.

The northernmost hut-circle (YARROWS04 929) measures about 4.6m in diameter within a stony bank up to 5.8m in thickness by 0.3m in height on the N, and there is a wide entrance on the S.

The second hut-circle (YARROWS04 930), which is situated 55m to the SE, is a ring-ditch house measuring about 6m in diameter within a stony bank 4m in thickness by 0.6m in height. The shallow ditch is up to 2m in breadth and its inner edge appears to have been lined with boulders. The ditch does not extend round the NW arc, but on the SSE it leads out through an entrance in the bank.

The third hut-circle (YARROWS04 931), which lies a further 10m SW, measures about 6m in diameter from NW to SE by 4.3m transversely within a stony bank up to 4.1m in thickness and 0.4m in height. There is an entrance on the SE.

What may be a fourth hut-circle (YARROWS04 932) is situated about 50m NE of the ring-ditch house, at the foot of a steep slope close to the edge of the loch. Roughly circular on plan, it is considerably smaller than the others and measures up to 3.6m in diameter within a stony bank 4m in thickness and 0.8m in height; the interior has been scarped back into the slope and the entrance is on the E.

A straight length of stony bank situated about 15m N of the northernmost hut-circle is likely to be of comparatively recent origin.

(YARROWS04 929-932)

Visited by RCAHMS (ATW) 10 September 2004