Rossal
Cairnfield (Period Unassigned), Hut Circle(S) (Prehistoric)
Site Name Rossal
Classification Cairnfield (Period Unassigned), Hut Circle(S) (Prehistoric)
Canmore ID 5500
Site Number NC60SE 6
NGR NC 6892 0318
NGR Description NC 6892 0318 and NC 6864 0326
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/5500
- Council Highland
- Parish Rogart
- Former Region Highland
- Former District Sutherland
- Former County Sutherland
NC60SE 6 6892 0318 and 6864 0326.
(A : NC 6892 0318) Hut Circle (NR).
OS 1:10,000 map, (1970)
A group of many scores of mounds lies along the west slope of the ridge south-east from Rossal on a hill known locally as Cnoc Righ Shonaidh. One towards the north side of the centre of the group is elliptical in outline measuring 29ft by 20ft and about 4ft in height.
A mound, 40ft by 17ft, lies towards the north side of the upper end of the ridge. At the south side of its southern extremity are the foundations of a small circular enclosure, with an interior diameter of about 10ft, and an entrance about 6 1/2ft wide from the north-west. The wall seems to have been built of material pillaged from the mound.
On a natural terrace in the hillside are the remains of a hut circle (A). Some 40ft west is a low circular mound measuring about 22ft overall, with a circular depression of about 6ft diameter entering from the north-west.
RCAHMS 1911, visited 1909.
Hut circle (A) surveyed at 1:2500.
Visited by OS (W D J) 5 July 1963.
Two hut circles (A and B), 'B' newly located at NC 6864 0326, and an accompanying field system.
'A', levelled up on a natural shelf, measures approximately 10.0m by 9.0m across within wall reduced to a peat- obscured rubble spread. The entrance is just discernible in the SE on the line of the long axis. 'B', set in the slope, measures about 7.5m by 6.5m across, within a wall reduced to a peat and heather-covered rubble spread at most pronounced 1.5m broad by 0.2m high; entrance is in the SE on the line of the long axis. A beaten path crosses the NE arc of the hut.
The field system comprises heaps of stone clearance, spaced from five to twenty metres apart, and tenuous signs of lynchets. There are no measurable plots. The mounds specifically mentioned by the RCAHM are three of the stone clearance heaps, the only noteworthy feature being a crude enclosure of unknown date and purpose set in against the south-south-east side of one, at NC 6885 0316, and apparently constructed of material from the heap. There are some outlying stone clearance heaps in the south and west.
Hut A : revised at 1:10,000.
Hut B : surveyed at 1:10,000.
Visited by OS (J M) 26 September 1980.
