Ackergill

ND35NW 2 3460 5530

Hut Circle, Ackergill: This lies in a sandy hollow 50 to 60ft above high water mark and about a mile NW of Ackergill Tower (ND35SE 16.00). It is 12ft in diameter internally N-S and 10 1/2ft E-W with walls now 1 1/2ft high. The paved floor yielded two implements of iron, resembling punches. To the N is a large kitchen midden, but whether associated or of a different date is not known. Few relics were discovered.

Cree, who excavated the site, dates the hut circle to the Early Iron Age - provided the iron implements have not worked down from the surface.

J E Cree 1911; RCAHMS 1911.

A crutch-headed bone pin, 3 9/16ins long, from the kitchen midden, was purchased for the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (NMAS) in 1939.

Proc Soc Antiq Scot 1939.

Despite an extensive search along the sand dunes between Ackergill Tower (ND 352 546) and ND 343 559, no trace of the hut circle or kitchen midden was seen. Local enquiries proved negative.

Visited by OS (E G C) 22 April 1963.

ND 3463 5530. The overgrown remains of a structure of unknown period comprising a amound with walling, 10m E-W, 3.6m N-S and 0.52m high, lying on the upper dune surface. A wall about 24m long lies 20m S of the structure.

C E Batey 1981.

The hut circle excavated by Cree and the structure described and planned by Batey are the same feature, located at ND 3460 5530 in a dune landscape. Some of the walling is still exposed but sand-blow has obscured details. The wall 24m long noted by Batey appears to be the E side of a barely discernible track. No kitchen midden can be identified. Surveyed at 1:2500.

Visited by OS (N K B), 2 September 1982.