West Knockenzie

NJ40SE 6 centred 467 001

(NJ 470 002) Cairns (NR)

(Name: NJ 467 001) Pictish Road (NR) (Remains of)

OS 6" map, Aberdeenshire, 2nd ed., (1902)

A Bronze Age (W D Simpson 1943) settlement at West Knockenzie, situated on a low flatteneed hillock, consists of a central group of two hut circles, 50ft by 45ft and 30 ft in diameter, five enclosures, ranging in size from "small" up to 97ft by 50ft (the latter divided by a partition), and a possible earth-house (represented by a hollow 55ft long and 15ft broad.)

There are several cairns, including two long cairns, hut foundations and a few "rings", to the north and north-west together with "an extensive peripheral series of walls, hollow-ways and cairns in the valley between Mullock Hill on the north and Tomachailich Hill on the south.

According to Wyness there are "14th century ways through the forest."

A Ogston 1931; W D Simpson 1943; F Wyness 1968.

This settlement and field system, centred on NJ 467 001, is generally as described by Ogston although it is now so denuded and overgrown that parts are unintelligible.

The alleged hut foundations and 'rings' are hollowed stone clearance heaps, and the cairns, including the long cairns, are also stone clearance. The walls are part of an extensive associated field system. There are, however, three other hut circles, each c.12.0m in diameter, formed by slight turf-covered stony banks, at NJ 4685 0020, NJ 4690 0022, and NJ 4694 0023, the latter cut by a modern track.

The hollow ways, 15 to 20ft wide between stony banks, are almost certainly associated, and are probably the "14th century ways" mentioned by Wyness.

Settlement surveyed at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (A A) 21 November 1968.