Cathy:

Every archaeological event only takes place after meticulous planning (in theory) but the Achilty crannog dig had many more logistial hurdles than the average dig, involving boats, lifejackets, radios, risk assessments, contingency plans for bad weather. As it was, we couldn’t have been luckier with the weather. Where I had gloomily expected strong winds, rain and low temperatures, we had a flat calm loch and glorious sunshine most days. So nobody got chilled, we didn’t have to shelter under the tarp and water levels, for the time of year, were probably quite low.

What tools would be required? We boated across picks, spades, bars, the usual boxes of small tools and no doubt we all had trowels in our back pockets, nearly all of which came back unused. Luckily nearly all of the stones that needed shifting could relatively easily be lifted by one person and were not deeply embedded. As for careful trowelling? Not needed on this dig!

Day 1:  Saturday 20th September 2025 

Iris:

Day 1 at the Loch Achilty Crannog Dig and in glorious autumnal weather the team of seven experts and volunteers, headed by Cathy Dagg, had a pleasant cruise out to the small island on the southwest end of Loch Achilty.  

Anne, team member number eight, remained on shore as support via walkie-talkie whilst also liaising with the public as the NOSAS representative.  Loch Achilty turned out to be a popular destination for numerous visitors, so Anne was able to tell the visitors about the activities on the island.  So throughout the day, wild swimmers, canoeists, and paddle boarders came over to say “hi!”.

On site work began to organise the equipment and make the site a little safer by trimming a thorny wild rose and sawing off a couple of menacing shrub stems sticking up out of the ground, enabling a makeshift tarpaulin shelter to be erected.  The trench site, Trench 2, was marked out with string, and everyone was given their instructions by Cathy. 

James in wellies and Lachlan in his khaki waders got to work removing over a ton of enormous stones.  As the trench grew deeper James changed his attire to a black wetsuit and was soon in water up to chest height. 

Claire and Tom worked on the shoreline using the loch water to wet sieve the bucket loads of silt that had been retrieved from the trench by James and Lachlan.  Finds were small pieces of bone, charcoal, a German cent (Euro), and an air rifle pellet.  Iris was tasked with making a photographic record of the day. 

James remarked that the dig might not take as long as the scheduled eight days if the trench had little archaeology in it.  But as fate would have it, Lachlan suddenly thought that he could feel something with the texture of wood in the deep murky water an arm’s length below the surface.  James, using a spade to tap the object, confirmed that this was indeed the case!  After quite a few minutes feeling around “blind” he described a smooth piece of timber, around 400mm wide and 300mm deep, lying across the trench. One end, which had a wide split down its length, lay to the west side of the trench; the other end disappeared into the opposite eastern side.  A major structural timber perhaps? 

 An intriguing start to the week in Loch Achilty. 

Cathy:

The crannog presents as a pile of random placed stones, fairly uniform in size: no boulders, nothing smaller than a brick. The small area in the centre of the crannog has over centuries been colonised by vegetation allowing some depth of earth to build up and small trees to establish. This of course obscures any form of building and around the edges there was no obvious trace of stone structures. Two boat ports had been cleared in recent times and the port on the north side of the crannog had been selected as the location of our trench as so much stone had been removed already. As we started, the depth of stones below present water level was already about 300mm and we knew we would only be able to go down to about 750mm below water level before the nose of even the largest volunteer (James) would be in the water.

This was a job calling for wetsuits, drysuits and waders. As soon as James and Lachlan started lifting stones to the side, the water became thick with sediment. This fine sediment refused to settle even overnight so that very soon all work had to be carried out by feel alone. Although we started out by marking out a fairly small trench, this had to be extended as the unstable rubble edges fell into the cleared area and the removed stones had to be cleared back further from the edge. The final trench area was approximately 3m E-W by 2m N-S, which even then didn’t give much room for two people to work in.

While the ‘dry land’ stones of the crannog had been washed clean of any sediment, possibly by seasonal fluctuations of water levels, the lower stones being removed from trench 2 were embedded in a matrix of soft grey/brown sediment (Context 2003). This was removed by the bucketful as the stones were lifted and, as we were fairly confident that this context would not be particularly old, we decided to wet sieve rather than retain bulk samples. The wet sieving was laborious but produced some interesting finds of recent origin. Thanks to Tom, Claire and Iris for persevering with this task.

At the end of day 1 it did seem that the base of the rubble layer was being reached and the context was changing from grey to black (Context 2007). Most interesting was the timber lying horizontally at a depth of about 400mm below water level, with an unnaturally flat surface and vertical sides. Of all the timbers found in and around the crannog so far, this one is the most likely to be in situ, structural and pre-date the addition of the rubble layer.

Day 2 Sunday 21st September 2025 

Iris:

Day 2 at the Loch Achilty Crannog dig was a beautiful fresh, bright, showery day and the loch was like a mill pond.  We were pleased to welcome two fresh faces to the team: Ruaridh (Anne’s grandson) and Andy – especially as we were missing Lachlan that day. 

The man-laid stones that make up the island were treacherous to traverse in the damp conditions.  However, unperturbed, the team were excited to find out more about the large timber that was revealed on Day 1.  Iris was asked to take a picture of Trench 2 straight away, as it was thought that the silt would have settled enough to get a clearer view of the large timber.  Unfortunately, it had remained murky – evidence of the large amount of clay present in the silt which could take a few days to settle. (Clay is the essential ingredient that held the crannog’s piles firmly in position, according to the Time Team special on the crannog on Loch Tay.) 

Cathy thought it wise to dig deeper down around the timber to understand what was going on below it and a spirited Andy, donning a pair of waders, was first in to start scooping out the silt and stones.  Reaching down, the cloudy water came up and soaked his rolled-up sleeves, but undeterred the work continued to try to reveal more of what was concealed down there.  

Claire and Tom continued with the sieving with a new extra-large sieve that Cathy had brought along for them to try out.  Tom found some fragments of purple coloured stone in his sieve and Cathy explained that their geological origin was the local garnet schist, which through time disintegrates into gravely deposits.  It was later decided that, because of the minimal amount of finds that were being revealed, the sifting of silt would cease for the time being. 

A sketch plan of the invisible underwater timber feature could only be gained with the use of an offset line.  Cathy got into her drysuit and entered the trench.  After setting up the datum line and measuring tape with Andy’s help, she used her sense of touch to relay the measurements from the line to Iris who plotted them on graph paper to create an outline drawing of the unseen object. 

Cathy started to dig down using a trowel and began bringing up a darker decayed organic material / fibrous vegetation mix.  Cathy wanted to get some core samples from the trench area and fortunately the auger went in easily to over a metre.  It revealed what looked like preserved wood or scrub material which was bagged ready for dating. Three cores in total were taken. The well-preserved wood retained its light colour in its waterlogged condition. 

Meanwhile, the team of divers from the Nautical Archaeological Society (NAS), based in Portsmouth, arrived in boats to start investigating the waters around the perimeter of the crannog.  Firstly, they set out a series of buoys as a safety measure warning of their underwater presence.  They planned to open “Proposed Trench One” on the left side of the diagram below. 

Later in the day, the divers announced that Fiona, a guest visitor, had arrived at the car park and very kindly offered to ferry her to the crannog which was an immense help, and Tom explained proceedings so far to her. 

At the end of day two, the plan for day three was to saw off a sample of the submerged timber for carbon-14 dating. 

Cathy:

This day was mostly taken up with recording and sampling our timber (timber 1). On with the drysuit for me. This was one of the most difficult measured plans I’ve had to do, completely by feel, at the furthest reach of my arm into the murky water. Taped offsets was the only way possible but, despite this, the resulting plan came out quite well. Meanwhile, some initial augering did seem to suggest that we had come to the base of the rubble and that the underlying deposits were fairly stone free and rich in organic material including soft timber. A grab of a bulk sample down to the base of our large timber confirmed the presence below this of timber, suggesting a lower timber layer across the entire trench. The only stones now seemed to be ones which had sunk into the dark deposit 2007.

As the trench edges extended outwards to make the working area safe, two further timbers (2 and 3) were located. These both appear to be unshaped branches, but both were clearly within the context of the rubble layer so must have been contemporary with the phase of rubble construction. Both are located at a higher level than timber 1.

Day 3 Monday 22nd September 2025

Iris:

Day three, and the archaeological work continued apace out at the Loch Achilty Crannog site.   Richard, James, Cathy, Dan, and Iris rowed over to the island, leaving Jean and David Newman ashore while David took drone footage of the crannog.  It was a cloudy, mild day with a cool, light breeze (smooth sailing conditions). 

Before work began, we noticed that the water in the trench was a little clearer, thus allowing a certain amount of underwater visibility, and we could just make out another piece of timber. 

Richard started off the day in his dry suit and submerged himself to take a wood sample from the Trench 2 timbers.  As he entered the water he could feel yet another piece of timber, which made three in total to sample – so two more to add to the sketch plan. 

The first, original, large beam was extremely dense wood, and obtaining a large enough piece was a struggle under the circumstances, but with two saws, a chisel, a heavy hammer and a big stone, he managed to cut off a sizeable piece for identification and carbon-14 dating purposes.  The second was of a softer wood and the pointed end piece of log was sawn off relatively easily.  The third piece of timber was again of softer wood, and Richard sawed a chunk off with relative ease. 

Cathy:

Richard was in the water trying to manipulate saws and a chisel, working blind, on a piece of timber (timber 1) so dense it took a long while (we didn’t time him). But, when the sample emerged it probed to be a seriously hard dense black piece of wood which obviously hadn’t suffered from being submerged for goodness knows how many centuries. Richard suggested oak, which apparently doesn’t rot when waterlogged. The second timber (timber 2) was much softer, lighter in colour and easier to sample.

Iris: Meanwhile the divers continued their work around submerged Trench 1 on the west side of the island.   Closer to land, using their sonar technology, they had managed to find another possible crannog site, an interesting development. 

The next job for us on the island was to draw the two new timbers onto yesterday’s original plan of Trench 2.  The offset line and measuring tape were set up and Richard remained in Trench 2 to take the measurements and call them out to Cathy, who plotted their positions onto the plan sheet 

Dan had set up the dumpy level, ready to measure and record the height levels around the island.  Cathy drew a temporary benchmark on a stone and set up a 10-metre-long north / south base line.  James positioned the staff, and Iris took the readings, while Cathy recorded the height points on the northern half of the island. 

Day 4 Tuesday 23^rd September 2025 

Iris:

Another glorious sunny day for the Loch Achilty Crannog Dig.  The loch reflected the surrounding tree-clad hills in its mirror-like surface.  Cathy, Richard, James, Simon, and Iris were on site.  Upon arrival we observed that the water in our trench had cleared enough to allow quite a clear view of the uppermost logs 

We were expecting the BBC’s Landward film crew, but before they arrived, Cathy wanted to finish getting the levels over the southern axis of the island.  Iris set up the dumpy level and gave Cathy the readings at intervals of one metre along the measuring tape baseline. 

Cathy and James were summoned back to shore to meet with the film crew. Meanwhile, Richard and Simon experimented with taking a core sample from the base of the trench using a Perspex tube, which Richard forced down manually then hammered in, using a piece of wood to protect the end (held it position by Simon).  Luckily, the tube penetrated the silty waterlogged soil with relative ease.  Extracting the tube was more difficult due to the powerful suction created, but the men’s strength and ingenuity won out and the core emerged from the ground encasing its intriguing trove. Richard immediately fitted a rubber cap to plug the lower end before we could marvel at the contents!  

The core sample showed a layer of preserved wood, above which was a dark brown organic layer beneath a layer of silt.  Cathy and James had returned to see the tremendous results before the Landward team arrived: Rosie the presenter, Fiona the director and David the cameraman.  James showed the core sample to them, and David joined in the fun of trying to eject the contents from the tube into a metal bucket.  This was such an exciting experience for him that he requested that Richard repeat the entire process “for the camera,” which Richard was pleased to do. 

While the next core sample was taken and made ready to be ejected into the bucket, David took footage of Cathy explaining the process of crannog evolution to Rosie, and of Cathy drawing a plan of the core sample.  The ejection of the core from the Perspex tube was a team effort involving even Rosie the presenter.  It was a painstaking struggle, in which many hands held onto the tube while Richard plunged with all his strength, a process that Rosie compared to “giving birth!”  

Eventually the time came for the Landward crew to visit the divers working on Trench 1, and we said our goodbyes. 

A third core sample was extracted from the trench, and this was left in the Perspex tube.  Richard and James proceeded to take some smaller core samples using a thin metal coring rod in areas that, because of stones, the larger tool would not penetrate.

The last moments of the day were spent on shore with Anne sharing the day’s excitement, and showing her the core sample that remained in the tube.  We all look forward to the carbon-14 dates from the charcoal and timber samples. 

Cathy:

Day 4 was taken up with trying to balance the demands of the BBC film crew and the important task of taking core samples. We had been provided with a ‘corer’ which proved to be no more than a perspex tube with a cap for both ends. It seemed to lack the means to extract it against the suction of the sediments so Richard had improvised handles which could be inserted once the corer had been pushed down. We started with two practice runs, which worked remarkably well, requiring very little pressure to push down, only some gentle tapping as it cut through the soft lower timber layer and emerging with three clear contexts including what may be the most interesting, the context (2009) below the lower timbers. Unfortunately the length of the corer meant that we could only bring up a few centimetres of this context but fingers crossed it will provide both environmental and settlement information.

The first two practice cores were removed carefully to ensure the contexts could be bagged separately. This removal did however require the sacrifice of my thermos cup which proved the right diameter to push down the tube without breaking into the sample. Both samples contained neat cylindrical pieces of the lower timber layer

The third core was retained within the tube and proved to be quite a prop for conversations with the BBC.

Day 4 was pretty much the end of my involvement with the crannog. There wasn’t much more we could do in Trench 2, we had achieved our goal of extracting samples of both timbers and deposits and the water was proving reluctant to clear of sediment enough for us to see to the bottom of the trench. What remained to do was persuade the dive team to open a new trench approaching our trench 2 from the north, which might be able to reach the interface between our deposits and timbers and the outer coating of rubble that they were working their way down through in Trench 1.

I left everyone else to do the backfilling!

Day 5 Wednesday 24^th September 2025 

Cathy called a paperwork day.  

Day 6 Thursday 25th September 2025 

Iris:

The weather yet again graciously bestowed on us a calm bright day at Loch Achilty with Richard, James, and Iris on site. 

Michael Stratigos, an expert in Scottish Crannogs from Aberdeen University who will be involved in sample analysis, was visiting us this morning in an advisory capacity for the site’s environmental sampling strategy.  His colleague, Bartek, remained on shore aiming to scan the area of the loch at the other possible crannog site (originally discovered by the loch’s fishing ghillie).  For this Bartek had a nifty home-made bathymetric kit that uses a hydro-acoustic method of scanning (a multi beam echo sounder attached to a child’s surfboard).  GPS is used to survey a specific pre-determined area and then return to near shore, where Bartek then took over, using a manual radio control to guide it back in. Clever stuff! 

Richard spent the morning with the Nautical Archaeology Society (NAS) divers, snorkelling around the crannog, and having a look at their excavation work.  On Day 4 they had uncovered a large timber lying at a 70° angle in Trench 3.   Before we could ferry Michael to the crannog site a Press and Journal reporter arrived for a story.  After interviewing and taking photographs of the crannog’s excavation team, the reporter was shipped to the island to see for herself the progress being made. (See the published P and J article here).

After an inspection of the crannog site and revelations about the excavation, Michael explained the process of taking DNA as well as carbon-14 readings from the loch bed core samples.  These may help interpret ancient human behaviour through shifts in the signature, and in addition, any timbers lying around the crannog site with no protruding branches were probably “worked,” and therefore did not float there naturally.  Michael advised on the best cutting strategy for taking dendrochronology (dendro) samples and how to  take sediment samples from beneath the two timbers in Trench 3 which may contain small pieces of twig, charcoal, and seeds – all good environmental indicators. 

Meanwhile Dave and his team of divers from the NAS continued to work on the Trench 3 excavation, as well as dive-survey for yet more possible loch crannogs. 

Michael left after requesting timber samples as a matter of priority for tree ring analysis. Richard, James, and the divers took a dendro sample from the large Timber 1 in Trench 3; a difficult job given its size, the fact that it was oak, waterlogged, underwater, and because the saw’s sharpness was questionable!  But with a good deal of perseverance and rotation of willing volunteers, a hefty piece was sawn off (two hours later).  Too large for a plastic lidded container, it was placed in a large supermarket carrier bag for Richard to take home to work on taking a slice off for Michael.  This took him another 2 hours. 

Day 7 Friday 25^th September 2025

Iris:

Yet another glorious day and Richard, James, Simon, and Iris were on site with David and Jean Newman onshore, intending to get some up-to-date drone footage of the crannog.  

The plan of action for the day was to infill Trench 2 after James had first taken a series of images at 2 second intervals using an underwater GoPro camera (attached to a pole to prevent sediment disturbance).  These images will be merged by David into a 3D photogrammetry model.  Diver Dave would be taking underwater footage of Trench 3 using an underwater camera.

The next job was to obtain dendro samples from Timbers 2 and 3 in Trench 2, one from the timber on the S/W shoreline, and later possibly one from Timber 1 in Trench 3, once the divers were ready to lift it.  Iris took some Scanniverse 3D images of the timber samples and one end of the timber on the S/W shoreline as it had signs of being “worked.” 

Infilling Trench 2 was straightforward. A piece of black polythene was submerged to cover the lower Timber 1 before a layer of stones was carefully placed in position by Simon and James to cover the bottom (would base be a better word?).  Then the splashing began!  The stones were all returned to the trench with little ceremony. 

Timber 2 was majestically recovered from Trench 3 after Diver Dave had completed recording its levels.  Unfortunately, it was thought unsuitable for a dendro sample, so after Iris had taken 3D imaging of both sides, and Dave had labelled it for future excavators, it was returned to its original location.    

James and Iris, the last remaining NOSAS members, bid a final goodbye to our island host, as the divers remained on site to refill their two trenches in an impressively coordinated system, passing individual stones that had been stored in large sandbags, one at a time, along the line of divers, returning them to the trench from which they had come.

This concluded a most interesting and enjoyable week investigating  the Loch Achilty crannog. 

Cathy:

OK, so before we started I had only a hazy understanding of crannogs in the Highlands; artificial pile of stones, maybe built up over a natural island, probably originally with some form of building. The earliest examples, on Lewis, dating back to the Neolithic and use of some continuing through until the mediaeval period. What I wasn’t expecting, though I should have been, (and Dan told me) was that the visible rubble may in fact be a fairly superficial overburden covering an initial timber structure built on thick timber piles, in fact just like the reconstruction at the Loch Tay Crannog Centre which was based on excavations on Oakbank Crannog in Loch Tay.

Oakbank Crannog was discovered to be a freestanding timber framework of foundation piles driven into the loch bed, supporting a platform which held a 15m diameter roundhouse and walkway surround, with a gangway to the shore. A separate row of foundation piles ran at right angles to the gangway and this feature is thought to be a shielding fence.

(SCARF Case Study: Oakbank Crannog, an Iron Age loch dwelling on Loch Tay)

Does Loch Achilty crannog conform to this? With such a small area cleared of stones and zero visibility, trying to make sense of it was like feeling blind through a keyhole. Also, even though I know there is no way the crannog will be exposed enough to reveal the deposits unless the whole loch is drained, it did feel like bad archaeology as our feet sank into what may well have been an occupation layer and our augers and corer pushed through timbers we couldn’t see or record.  Professionally, it was something of a relief to call a halt to excavation in Trench 2 after 4 days of investigation. We had achieved our goal of retrieving one intact core sample and several bulk samples of organic deposits as well as samples from two timbers within Trench 2 to add to the timbers sampled by the dive team.

Simon Arnold
Anne Coombs
Ruraidh Coombs
Cathy Dagg
Tom Davis
Richard Guest
Iris Longworth
Dan Maguire
James McComas
Lachlan McKeggie
Andy Trevett
Claire Wallis

The hardy onsite NOSAS team

The Cistercian abbey of Kinloss was established in 1150 by David I of Scotland.  Kinloss Abbey remained a central focus of monastic life in the northeast of Scotland until the reformation of 1560.  Following the Reformation the final abbot, Walter Reid, commenced the selling off its monastic lands and the fabric of the monastery for building material; effectively turning the abbey into a standing quarry.  The systematic removal of stone for recycling provided building material for many local civic and agricultural buildings.  This continued until the 1840s, when a public outcry was successful in preventing further destruction.

Little remains of this once expansive abbey, only the south transept and the west and south cloister walls remain upstanding, Figure 2.  These are situated within the oldest part of the current graveyard, while south of the graveyard are the remains of the Abbot’s house; currently undergoing preservation work by the Kinloss Abbey Trust. 

Having lived nearby to Kinloss Abbey for many years and having been a Trustee of the abbey for the past four years, my burning questions about the site are, put simply, just how big was the abbey complex and are there any archaeological remains to be found? 

The Google Earth image above shows the abbey bounded by the Kinloss Burn to the south and west, this was canalised during the improvements period.  Also, the extension to graveyard to the east and the improvement farm buildings to the west would seem to be the obvious areas for the monastic complex.  However, Cistercian monasteries of similar scale and importance across the country have far larger footprints than these two areas, and surly the expanded complex couldn’t have been neatly covered by these later additions?  Also, the topography of the area would indicate that a likely area for part of the complex would be to the northeast of the graveyard, on the top of the rise.  This is clearly seen in Figure 3, a LiDAR image produced by Michael Sharpe. The red line shows the 4m contour indicating the obvious promontory of land, a classic example of Cistercian monastic landscapes.

To study such a site the question was, literally, where to start.  Excavation with the graveyard area was a non-starter; Scheduled monument.  And just digging random trenches across the farmers field was again a non-starter.  With no previous largescale survey completed this meant a blank canvas lay waiting, and the opportunity to discover the scale and layout of the abbey. Therefore, a large scale Geophys study to find an outline of the complex is the order of the day. 

I contacted the farmer, Douglas White, who agreed to allow a survey, however as it was late in the year, with poor weather and the intention to plough in February, meant that this year would initially only be the equivalent of a couple of trial trenches. 

During previous research I had been lucky enough to come across a survey conducted by William Anderson in 1746 for the Lethen estate, Figure 4, who owned the surrounding land, including Kinloss Abbey, at the time.

Anderson’s survey provided some opportunity targets.  Clearly the overall landscape features remained the same, the road, burn and steadings remaining today, but it was the buildings marked ‘Alex Gordons’ that drew the eye.  Note in the inset an archway over the road leading to the abbey at Alex Gordons buildings. Could this be the original gatehouse to the monastery?  Also, in the history of the abbey there is mention of a large orchard, could Dean Archibalds Yeard be the remnants of this, and what was the building at its southeast corner? 

With this in mind I approached NOSAS who kindly lent me their resistivity equipment and Bob and Rosemary Jones.  I decided to place two 20 x 40m grids each side of the lane to the abbey (TA1 & TA2) to look for Alex Gordons buildings.  Then a 20 x 20m grid on the rise to the east to look for the small building at the southeast corner of orchard, Figure 5. 

Unfortunately, the weather had been poor, both TA1 & TA2 were saturated so the results were at best ‘inconclusive’.  TA6, on the higher ground faired much better, but only being a 20 x 20m grid although tantalising was too small to provide a good image.  Therefore, we revisited in mid-January.  TA1 & 2 remained too wet to survey, TA6 was extended to a 40m x 40m grid and acting on information from the farmer, who reported large ‘worked stones’ next to the Abbot’s House, TA9, 20m x 40m, was set up running north-south.  Both TA6 and TA9 revealed interesting features.  We surveyed again in February.  At TA2 the ground had dried out, a 40m x 40m grid was surveyed, but remained inconclusive. TA9 was enlarged to a 40m x 40m grid, with results coincident with the report from Douglas White. Also, an exploratory 20m x 20m grid (TA10) was surveyed, again designed to search for the building at the southeast corner of Dean Archibalds Yeard, (Figure 6).

Shortly after this last survey the fields surrounding Kinloss Abbey were ploughed.  With a group of friends I took the opportunity to undertake a fieldwalking exercise in March. We concentrated in the field to the west of the access lane, then with what light remained walked the area to the southeast of the graveyard. 

The area to the west had a large concentration of mixed finds; from flints, industrial waste, glass and medieval ceramics plus an assortment of post medieval artefacts (see below).  Of specific interest was the glazed and medieval pottery, certainly dating from the monastic period.

Both field exercises were the first stages in a far wider study of the abbey.  Shortly there will be a full resistivity survey around the graveyard out to 40m.  This, it is hoped, could identify areas of the monastic complex for further investigation. Also, a second fieldwalking exercise will add to the data already collected.        

Fieldwork at Kinloss Abbey has the potential to uncover the unrecorded story of the abbey, showing the true impact on the landscape of this once imposing structure. With the support of Douglas White, NOSAS and friends the next few months should be a major step forward in this research. 

The romantic era brought with it a passion for creating paths and indeed networks of ‘walks’ leading to scenic features, notably riverbanks, waterfalls and belvederes.  These showed off the extent and natural beauties of landowners’ properties, and can be seen as status symbols confirming that the owners were au fait with the spirit of the times.  They also of course provided exclusive and appealing recreational opportunities for owners’ families and guests – stimulating appetites and conversation.  They would suggest aesthetic appreciation, encouraging leisure pursuits from sketching, watercolours, and philosophising to poetry and of course wooing.

Making such paths was in those days very cheap, and would provide employment during the off-season.  All the land was grazed and any woodland exploited, so that the terrain would have been easier to cut through than now;  some paths may have upgraded animal and human trods.  Paths would be surfaced and drained where necessary to afford dry, mud-free passage.  Footbridges and railings might be basic or more ornamental.  On grander estates, the scene was commonly improved with grottoes, pavilions and towers, whether functional or follies.  And path-making went hand-in-hand with landscaping, creating or restoring woodlands, and lining the walks with ornamental plantings.  Regrettably, these majored on the invasive rhododendron ponticum, valued for its hardiness, and perhaps providing gamebird cover (many ‘pheasantries’ are mapped).

Amenity paths in the Highlands – sporting and permanent estates

While the path-making craze manifested widely across southern Scotland, England, and indeed parts of Europe, in the Highlands the picture is confused by the advent of the sporting estates.  Many of these created extensive systems of “stalkers’ paths” (then known as pony paths) – see blogpost on that subject – many of which will have served recreational purposes as well.  But a few of these estates also created path networks purely for recreational and aesthetic enjoyment – notably Sir John Fowler’s at Braemore, where today only fragments survive in Corrieshalloch Gorge (with its viewpoint footbridge).  Bear in mind that these amenity paths were only enjoyed for the few months of the ‘Highland Season’ and were primarily for the entertainment of guests staying for lengthy periods.

This blogpost addresses a rather different category of path-making, on the permanently-inhabited estates of the more fertile parts of the Highlands, and in particular the cultivated fringes on the Old Red Sandstone around the Moray Firth.  These paths were, by contrast, intended for year-round use, by the owners’ households, day visitors, and staying guests.  Indeed, travellers’ journals often record requests to visit houses and their grounds, which could of course be explored via these designed paths – the rural equivalent of applying to see a private art collection in a city.  All part of upholding one’s position in society – or especially, making a name if a parvenu.

The emergence of the estates – Roy’s Map

Roy’s great map of ~1750 strikingly depicts a nascent pattern of improved estates around these shores, the Big Hoose often already having an emparked nucleus within a core of rectangular tree-framed fields – a curiously colonial effect, with stockaded ‘plantations’ dotting a still-open landscape.  Rather surprisingly, this pattern is better developed around the Cromarty Firth than along the south side of the Moray Firth, where there is nothing of substance between the great estate of Culloden and Brodie, and a void west of Inverness save for Bunchrew.  This is despite the greater distance from the Cromarty Firth lands to Inverness as Highland capital, and the lack of a through road – possibly access was easier by sea, or land quality was more favourable (less sandy), or perhaps this was simply a quirk of clan/ownership history ?

Roy’s map is of course at too small a scale to show paths, and we can only speculate as to when path-making might have begun, and how rapidly it spread.  No doubt ‘keeping up with the Macs’ favoured rapid emulation.  The idea was probably imported from travels both in England – great landscaped estates such as Stowe – and on the Grand Tour.

Map evidence for path networks

The first Ordnance Survey maps of the early 1870s come far too late to give us any idea of when estates around here began creating their recreational paths.  The Six-Inch shows the path pattern at its zenith, with little added in the 1902 second edition.  The paths are mapped in fine detail, including footbridges, with apparent accuracy (but see later).  The parent Twenty-five Inch maps for the settled areas (available individually but not in the convenient online georeferenced maps) may occasionally show a little more detail.  Research into estate maps and records may shed some light on when paths were made, but is beyond present scope or purpose.

Here we might make clear that the paths we are interested in are for walking on foot, not recreational riding – which became more possible for gentle exercise (as against the excitement of the chase) as estates developed woodland rides and carriage drives, often extending well inland and uphill.

Map evidence for path networks – Cromarty Firth, Black Isle and Beauly Firth

Scanning the Six-Inch First Edn (~1871) for significant estates finds a majority possess such paths.  Only the Black Isle group have so far been visited to see what might survive.  Clockwise from the north-east we find:

Cromarty Firth –  Easter Ross side

• Balnagown Castle – burnside walks, drive through woods to Lady Ann’s and Lady Mary’s Seats.
• Tarbat House (Milton) – grand drive sweeping down from Kildary Stn, walks along wooded burn and to shore – with ‘Seat’ marked twice above the riverbends, exceptionally.
• Invergordon Castle – extensive parkland grounds, path networks in Beech Wood, Oak Wood and American Garden (no burnside to follow).
• Ardross Castle – maze of paths in nearest wood;  paths along Alness River (some doubtless for fishing access, but often stray away from riverbank);  paths up Tollie Burn ravine;  path up Iron Rock little ravine, footbridges below and above waterfall.
• Balconie House (Evanton) –  path to River Glass and down to shore.
• Novar House – path/drive up to Creag Ruadh Monument and via waterfalls to Cnoc Fyrish Monument, circular route beyond;  1.75 mile path along Black Rock gorge (spectacular footbridge is present from 2^nd Edn c.1900).
• Foulis Castle – nil, except modest path beside lower Burn of Foulis to station.
• Mountgerald –sweeping S-shaped carriage drive up from shore road, short path beside Clyne Burn ‘waterfalls’.
• Tulloch Castle – splendid extent, drives and garden walks (Winter Gardens and ‘Champs Elysées’ !), hill tracks, no obvious paths

River Conon valleys

• Castle Leod – track up Peffery Burn to Raven Rock (looks functional).
• Brahan Castle – a remarkable choice of strolls around and up Beech Knoll, walks to River Conon and up and down stream, and promenades above and below the line of crags (above the new Ullapool road, sadly lost to forestry).
• Coul House – paths (or rides) up into the woods (View Hill) and to Kinnellan Loch.
• Fairburn House – ornamental carriage drive up River Orrin, network in wooded grounds, paths up burnside and wood above
• Conan House – surprisingly limited, short riverside path.
• Ord House – meandering path up woodland behind Mains farm.

Beauly River and Firth (south side)

• Beaufort Castle – very extensive drives and paths in the grounds, continuing up and down the Beauly River – at least four Summer Houses; amenity tracks through wooded hills up to Aigas.
• Belladrum – short wooded burnside paths, footbridge
• Phoineas – amenity track winding up Phoineas Hill
• Moniack – remarkable path network both sides of Reelig Burn – visited by NOSAS
• Bunchrew – nil

Black Isle  

• Rosehaugh – a long two-mile path up its deep wooded burn to Killen (now sadly cut by landslips and a deep ford of the Goose Burn, no longer bridged); drives and woodland tracks.
• Drummarkie – dense network of woodland paths, Rosemarkie Burn – further up than more recent Fairy Glen and Dens paths.
• Cromarty House – a cat’s cradle of paths in the wooded dell, mostly lost to jungle and time.
• Findon – microcosm of a path network in a ravine to a waterfall – see case study below.

Other Black Isle estates such as Tore Castle, Allangrange, Poyntzfield, Newhall are lacking.

Wiping paths off the map

One peculiarity of OS mapping history emerges from close comparison of the First and Second editions – most persist, but those on the Black Isle either disappear completely, or (at Drummarkie) shrink by half.   Any suggestions as to why will be most welcome.  One possibility is that owners put pressure on the surveyors to omit their private amenity paths, to discourage public trespass – thus at Beaufort Castle, the riverside path downstream disappears, as do all the Summer Houses.  This also occurred with the One-Inch Second edition in the Western Glens sporting estates at least, where ‘stalkers paths’ largely disappeared from some estates.

Ravines – a pathmakers’ gift from the end of the Ice Age

Around the Moray Firth, estates varied in their physical amenities for path-making – they might front onto the sea, or one of the big rivers;  they might be low-ground, or have hills and crags at their back.  But one feature possessed by many of those listed above has proved particularly conducive to all-year recreational walking – the ravine.

Such ravines are common enough to be taken for granted, usually as obstacles and nuisances, interrupting the smooth arable lands and the passage of the main roads and railway.  They are frequently quite deep and visually striking, although now mostly lost to thick vegetation.  These ravines created four vital assets for the path-makers to exploit:

• spare land, which was probably fenced off when the peasant townships were enclosed and today’s large farms created;
• privacy – a short stroll, often screen-planted, from the Big Hoose to the dell would then afford seclusion for family and guests – an outdoor version of the notorious front stair – back stair segregation of owners from workers;
• scenic assets – crags, dells, cascades, and especially waterfalls at their heads;
• shelter – it can be attested that such paths can be enjoyed on any day of the year, protected from driving rain, mists, westerly gales, and even the dread east-coast haars and chills: a benign microclimate.

Readers of a geographical bent might note that these ravines are a little-appreciated phenomenon in the postglacial geomorphology of the Firths (others may take a deep breath here).  They were incised very rapidly by meltwaters released during the last deglaciation (which was catastrophically fast – a few centuries).  The Cromarty Firth glacier would have channelled melt streams along its margins and impounded them in temporary lakes, until they found sudden release beneath the ice.  How rapidly the ravines were cut is unknown:  where there is today a large river such as the River Glass at Evanton, a gorge such as Black Rock might have evolved over years or decades.  But where the present catchment is small and its burn far too feeble to cut into bedrock even in spate, it suggests the meltwater flood might have lasted only a few days or even hours.

In fact such ravines are found all around the Highlands, wherever the mountain topography favoured “jökulhlaups” (or GLOFS as they are now boringly termed – glacial lake outburst floods).  As well as Braemore, where much of Fowler’s path network explores the gorges there, the “stalkers paths” visited by NOSAS at Glencarron Lodge lead to a spectacular ravine (see that blogpost).  But the Moray Firths and Black Isle have them in abundance because great glaciers were channelled into them, and because the “Fifty-foot raised beach” provides an abrupt step just inland of the present shoreline into which a ravine can easily nick and then propagate headwards.

Ravine paths were a feature (among the estates noted) at Balnagown (modestly), Ardross, Novar, Belladrum, Moniack (Reelig) notably, Rosehaugh, Cromarty, and not least Findon, where we now go.

Exhuming the waterfall path labyrinth of Findon Burn

Of all the estates listed, Findon is one of the smallest, or least grand, in terms of the Big Hoose, its appurtenances, and its ornamental grounds – here amounting to little more than a walled garden.  From House of Findon (Arrowsmith 1807) it became the present late Victorian Findon Mains – larger than a typical farmhouse but well short of being a mansion (it would grace a genteel plot in Fortrose).  Findon became conjoined with Mountgerald across the firth around 1875 (OS Namebook records the ‘change of address’ of Capt. Mackenzie}, and may thus have become something of a satellite property.  It does comprise extensive rich farmlands.

The house stands near the shore of the Cromarty Firth beside the mouth of Findon Burn, which has incised an impressive ravine up to 20 m deep into the Old Red Sandstone (which is here honey yellow).  Near the head of its 800 m length, the ravine is interrupted by a handsome waterfall mapped as Raven’s Rock.[1]

By 1970, when the writer first knew it, the ravine had become choked with rhododendron almost up to the waterfall (above which the ravine had been quarried for excellent building stone). 

Since then, a very slow process of attrition, hand tools only, sole operative, has rolled back the rhodo perimeter to prevent it invading the Oak Wood, and has penetrated selectively within, along lines that appeared to lead somewhere, downstream.  It gradually became evident that these ‘lines of least resistance’ were old paths, distinctly cut into the generally soft steep ravine sides, and just wide enough to walk along in single file.  A pattern began to emerge, with traces of path on both sides, both down near the burn and up just below the rim, with remains of stone bridge abutments a metre or more high in several places.

Map evidence and GPS confirmation

Recourse was eventually had to the early OS maps, where although they had previously been studied for other purposes, the dashed-tramline path network had lurked unsuspected and camouflaged amongst the tree and heath symbols on 6-1 – and vanished altogether from 6-2.  Indeed a debt is here owed to NOSAS colleagues Alan Thompson and Anne Cockroft for producing the 25” sheet, which appeared merely to be a larger-scale version intended for land measurement, but which revealed an additional path loop and crossing point obscured on 6-1 by the legend ‘Findon Burn’.

Surprisingly, there are substantial elements of exhumed path that have never been mapped, even at this large scale.  Possibly they were made after 1871, and then never mapped given, as we have seen, the whole network was deleted in 6-2.  This might also suggest that the path network was in process of creation, probably over some years, around that time.

Anne and Alan then brought their GPS skills to bear, recording the exhumed network and the deviations needed to link its fragments.  Where elements are mapped, there is a reasonably close fit with what is on the ground, with some inconsistencies and irreconcilables.  These might betray mismapping, but the surveyors were usually assiduous, and it is possible that some sections were added or relocated.  The slopes are mostly dry, but some seepage and slippage zones (perhaps even provoked by path excavation) may be to blame for displacements.

Exhumation extent and recent path-work

Even with GPS toggled with the old maps, it has not been possible to locate a start point and way in at the low end.  Exhumation has so far revealed most of what is mapped in the upper half, and more, but it is impractical to extend it into the lower half (below FB 2 – see map and below), such is the rhodo density and other impediments.

The inherited pattern has also become somewhat confused first by the writer’s cutting of a slant path down the NE side giving access for the public to the foot of the waterfall, and then by clearing a transectional swathe midway to reveal the scale of the ravine.  This encouraged an instructive experiment in how zigzag stalkers’ paths were made – and also revealed additional unsuspected path fragments and bridge abutments.

While the original paths would have been quite easy to cut, with only local outcrops of loose or weathered rock to negotiate, they require annual maintenance to clear leafy debris, soil creep, and rhododendron spread and (where tunnelled through) sag.  Such maintenance probably dwindled after WW1 as labour became scarce, and ceased altogether as the rhodo took over.  The precarity of some elements of the path network is attested by the loss without trace of that 25” mapped midway crossing point, and by a freshly restored stretch across a precipice soon being rendered inaccessible by uprooted trees and slumping rhodo tangles.

Archaeological evidence

The path network shown on the accompanying map, combining OS and GPS evidence, can be summarised in relation to the five mapped crossing points (discussed below) thus (LB – Left Bank, RB – Right Bank looking downstream):

Main circuit (taken clockwise):

Internal short-cut loops or criss-crossing options : 

• at FB 2, no extant traces, links recut
• at FB 3, no trace RB, possible slant back to rim path LB partly exhumed
• at FB 4, RB is adjacent to main path, LB is conspicuous traverse across precipice, exhumed then blocked both ends as noted

The principal artefacts are (or might be inferred to be) the stone bridge abutments.  There are five mapped burn crossings, none denoted as either Foot Bridge or Ford.  Numbering them from the Findon Farm end :

The features at FB 2 are a short way downstream from the mapped locus, so far as it can be related to the present burn course.  They are just above a point where the burn enters a sweeping bedrock plunge, and a bridge here would have been a ‘romantic’ viewpoint.  On the NE bank, there appears to be a stone revetment several metres long with a paved top, the downstream end being a large slab with quarter-round corner.  Any path coming directly down to it will have been lost to a zone of seepage; a ramp has now been cut down to it from upstream.  On the SW side, there are hints of a similar platform, although the degraded slabby cliff has spread to obscure it.  Traces of a path coming down the bank above from a 2 m-deep cutting leading into Oak Wood are at variance with the mapped line;  this approach has been crudely recut.

At FB 3, on the NE side bank erosion has destroyed any construction (and a scanty ledge-way recut down to the slabby burn bed). However the NW side is a broad terrace a mere step up from the burn bed, and possibly no bridge was provided;  a stepping stone now (Spring 2025) suffices to create the first dry-shod no-scrambling crossing of Findon Burn between waterfall and farm in possibly a century.

At both FB 4 and 5, abutments survive on both sides;  the latter could readily be reused if the adjacent metal plank ‘bridge’ installed by farm boys years ago finally rusts away.

Here it is assumed that any footbridges were wooden, as no metal remains have been found.

The other important artefact is a steep flight of stone steps up the NE (RB) side of the waterfall.  Although they have partially collapsed, they are still used by the intrepid.  The 25” valuably confirms, albeit on a sheet junction, that the mapped path was indeed located within the horseshoe of Raven Rock, unclear at 6”.  The steps are only feet from the waterfall (which is a steep cascade rather than a clean drop), and their passage would have provided a thrilling culmination to the walk.  However, FB 5 is too far upstream to view the fall from above – at the lip, the banks would lend themselves to a longer footbridge spanning it dramatically, as seen at Foyers, Plodda (Guisachan) and elsewhere.  It can only be speculated whether this was ever envisaged here – or even attempted.

Evidence for recreational enjoyment

The Mackenzie ownership and family history at Findon (now Macintyre) is not clear enough, and nor are records available, to determine who instructed and designed the path network, or who were the intended beneficiaries.  The writer has informally called them “The Ladies’ Walks” as tradition has it there were redoubtable ladies resident at the relevant period;  while no exception has been taken to this term locally, it may today appear overly patronising.  Nevertheless, tracing the paths is not for the feeble or faint-hearted, especially the two ‘Precipice Paths’ down LB from the waterfall, just below the rim and half-way down the cliff, where a line just above the rim would have been simpler to make and frisson-free.  It is possible to imagine Victorian and Edwardian family members and friends enjoying short but spirited expeditions, well sheltered from even the worst weather.

Here it is significant that the mapped paths stop at the top of the waterfall, with a bridge affording a circuit.  They did not extend to the public road at Findon Mills farm let alone the main Cromarty road or village of Culbokie.  This may have reflected the quarrying activity above, where today a worn trod completes the link, but also suggests that these paths were a strictly private amenity – and there are no paths through Oak Wood to the public road beyond it either.

Conversely, it is perhaps surprising that family and guests had to walk from the Big Hoose up through the farm and past the workers’ cottages to the start of the path, when a route from the door up the field the other side of the burn (RB) could easily have been made.

Beyond simple physical exercise, the amenity of the burn was ‘improved’ not just with rhododendron clumps but with a few ornamental larches and pines amongst the native oaks and birches.  A small square Nursery is mapped, presumably for trees and shrubs, although unusually there is no evidence of new woodland planting on the estate.  The ground flora before rhodo spread cannot be known, with woodrush now monopolising the surviving open areas, but there is nothing of botanical interest today, apart from rare mosses and ferns at the waterfall.  Yet above the waterfall the quarry floor is carpeted in their turn with snowdrops, celandine, and bluebells (possibly introduced), with wood anemone, sorrel, and arctic starflower, while Oak Wood has blaeberry and heather, with some cow-wheat.  The ravine is today the haunt of the jay, owl, and buzzard, and of badgers.

Aesthetic appreciation likewise can only be surmised.  There is no map or ground evidence for viewing platforms, belvederes, or seats, let alone grottoes – such as adorn a very similar ravine-path network at Dirnanean House, Enochdhu (between Pitlochry and Blairgowrie).  Within the ravine, there are a couple of level terraces where picnicking and artistic pursuits might be imagined – and have now (2025) been reopened.  But the main clue must reside with the precipice paths, which if we can imagine clearing the inaccessible rhodo tangle, would have provided impressive and indeed exquisite close-up views of the Black Rock Waterfall, now only glimpsed when in spate.

A waterfall walk in pre-history

The present well-used path from the corner of Oak Wood past the lip of the waterfall to FB 5 is cut wider than all others.  Not far down the track into Oak Wood, and a few yards in, an incomplete ring of large well-rounded boulders can be found – mainly mountain schist, but including Inchbae augen-gneiss, glacial erratics, gathered from some radii, geologically and then by people.  They have been revealed simply by peeling back the woodrush which favours them. 

This ring of stones was only identified quite recently by NOSAS member Allan Mackenzie in field walking as a Neolitihic roundhouse, and has since been examined by a NOSAS team and recorded.  It is typically isolated, suggesting relatively peaceable times, people in balance with resources;  it is also typically near but not close by a water source.  As the Findon Burn is in a deep ravine where closest, these people would have gone for water above the waterfall at FB 5, by the now-cut track we like to call Water-carriers’ Path.

[1] to hark back to the geomorphology, above the ravine onset at Findon Mills, this burn is usually a trickle in a channel little more than a field ditch in an imperceptible dip winding through glacial hummocks up to shallow Culbokie Loch.  Its catchment area is modest.  Hence the contention that the ravine was incised in days or even hours as an ice-marginal lake suddenly drained off beneath the dying Cromarty Firth glacier.

The large-scale excavation of Clachtoll broch in north west Sutherland took place in 2017 and 2018 with intensive post-excavation analysis continuing for several years and culminating in the production of the full report in 2022 – Clachtoll: An Iron Age Broch Settlement in Assynt, North-West Scotland, edited by Graeme Cavers and published by Oxbow. Our 2017 blog posts on the excavations at Clachtoll can be seen here and here.  However, as always with a dig, just as some questions were answered by the excavation and analysis, a whole range of new ones emerged!

More information on farming at Clachtoll can found on the Clachtoll Broch website (https://www.clachtollbroch.com/diet):

The broch was home to a farming family. They reared cattle, sheep, possibly goats, and a few pigs. The cattle and sheep/goats provided milk which was used to make butter and cheese. The animals were kept until they reached their full size, grazing nearby and, in the winter, eating fodder grown on the farm and seaweed gathered from the shore. Once they had reached optimum size, they were slaughtered for their meat. Beef and lamb/mutton formed a much larger part of their diet than pork.  

The primary arable crop grown by the people of the broch was hulled barley. Hulled barley, unlike naked barley, has a tough husk that needs to be removed before the grain can be cooked or ground for flour. Numerous quernstones attest to the grinding of grain at the broch. 

The discovery of large numbers of agricultural tools, extensive stores of grain, a knocking stone and several quern stones, together with both wild and domesticated animal bone made it abundantly clear that this was predominantly a farm, but what kind of a farm?  How large and varied an area was being utilised, what were the farming strategies of the Broch occupants and how did all that compare with the evidence from other broch sites of the same period?

The evaluation of this evidence from Clachtoll and how this contributes to our knowledge the farming practices there is being investigated by Katie Smith in her work towards an MSc in Bioarchaeology at Durham University. Using stable isotope analysis, she set out to explore the following specific questions:

• What were the environmental conditions at the broch
• What evidence is there for soil amendment strategies?
• What can be said about the dietary contributions of the various archaeobotanical remains to livestock and human populations?
• How do the results fit in the wider broch palaeoeconomy of Atlantic Scotland?

Her study was able to establish that barley, hazelnut and heather came from different environmental niches and that barley cultivation took place over a wide range of landscapes and not just the fertile machair. Her work also suggested that there was considerable variability in both the amount of manuring and the types of fertilisers being used. These results together point to an ‘extensive’ agricultural system at Clachtoll, one utilising a wide area, a variety of environments and in contrast to the ‘intensive’ cultivation and manuring required to maximise the yield from a smaller and less varied landscape as found at some other Middle Iron Age broch sites.  This consequently reinforces the idea that there was considerable diversity in farms and farming strategies across Atlantic Scotland. In addition, this study suggests that the importance of plant protein in the human diet in Atlantic Scotland in this period has been underestimated.

Katie’s work contains many more insights and much more detail than I have touched on here. She is currently writing her dissertation into a scientific paper with Professors Mike Church and Darren Gröcke at Durham University. The paper is anticipated to be published in 2026, it will be open-access and a link will be provided through the usual NOSAS channels.

For Saturday 12^th July, I had volunteered at short notice to help with the survey of underwater timbers at the Loch Achilty crannog and I was all ready for day on the ocean waves, then at the last minute on Saturday morning the task was called off.  My hasty but long planned Plan B was a recce of the Dava Way (https://davaway.org.uk/) by Ebike starting at Forres. The Dava Way (the Way hereon) is a medium distance path mostly along the old railway track-bed between Forres and Grantown on Spey.  I had looked at parking in Forres previously and I knew to park at Sanquhar Pond on a quiet road. The Dava Way is well waymarked from that car park to the start of the Way proper.

I cannot recommend the first 4 miles or so, heading south.  There is a nasty diversion through forestry of about 2 miles with a dreadful surface of large stones, some as big as buckets and tree roots up to 4” high crossing the path. Once past Dallas Dubh distillery, the old track-bed surface improves and there are glimpses of countryside through trees.  The Way begins to open up more after Edinkillie Public Hall, and eventually you break out into the open.

The purpose of this blog though is to say that I had years ago discussed Dava Way expeditions to visit archaeology near the track with George Grant, a founder member of NOSAS (and an early chairman). George was the only person I knew who had frequently travelled on the line as a young man.  Well, those expeditions never happened, but lots of other things did! 

On Saturday I went as far as Bogeny Bridge, about 12 miles from Forres but I had been distracted along the Way by an interpretation board inviting travellers to go up to Logie Windfarm for the experience, which was indeed worth it.  Also, it was fearsomely warm day. By the time I reached Bogeny Bridge I had been cycling for a couple of miles with burnt trees and moorland on both sides of the track, the result of the massive wildfire at Dava a week previously (see BBC News).  I could see areas still smoking in the distance.  Videos and photos attached.  The aftermath of the fire is quite dramatic and it looks like all of the prominent round topped hill called Knock of Braemoray has been completely burned.  A disaster for wildlife but the impact on archaeology is significant also.  Knock of Braemoray has 3 field systems and one hut circle marked on the OS (see HER NJ04SW0002 and NJ04SW0003).

Some of you will recall the huge fire about 15 years ago on Fylingdales Moor in Northumberland after which major new rock art discoveries were made (see Guardian article).  Once there has been some decent rainfall to settle the ash and charcoal dust, my suggestion is that we go fossicking up there.  My proposal is to park behind Edinkillie Hall where there is a small official Way car parking area, picnic benches and an outdoor educational facility, then cycle ever onwards towards Grantown.  The Way climbs steadily all the way from Forres up to Dava at about 320m OD where for several miles it plateaus out past Knock of Braemoray to which access is easy from the Way.  The climb is barely perceptible on an Ebike and of course it is much easier on the return downhill.  If you have field work experience (preferably) and are interested, please contact me.

I have already mentioned an interpretation board and there are lots of them along the Way, large ones and small ones.  The big ones tend to focus on wildlife and history whilst the smaller ones appear to have been written by the main estate.  The interpretation boards all date to between 2007 and 2013.  How attitudes have changed in that short space of time.  On one small board in particular, it says the land management plan is to kill as many foxes, crows, weasels and stoats as possible to increase grouse numbers – yes – for yet more killing opportunities! 

The same board also mentions using sheep flocks on the moorland as tick mops, something I have been aware of for a long time.  Then six times a year the sheep are dipped to kill off the ticks and sheep scab (a form of allergic dermatitis caused by the highly parasitic scab mite).  Ticks can badly affect young grouse and mountain hares almost blinding them.  The regulations for dipping with organophosphates changed in 2021 to favour mobile dipping contractors who are tightly controlled and must work to a rule book.  The pesticide treatment must be flock specific and the material, only 7 days’ worth at a time, must be prescribed by a vet.  I have done sheep dipping in the past, all togged up in full PPE, and it is an unpleasant job. 

Now what has all this got to do with archaeology? Well, a good few NOSAS members that I know, including myself, have had Lyme disease, which is transmitted to humans by infected ticks.  It is the number one hazard of doing archaeological fieldwork in woods and on moorland. 

I returned about halfway back to Forres on the Way, then I had had enough of the bumpy surface, so I peeled off onto public roads which were very quiet and I enjoyed a long downhill whizz back to the car. 

My two-week UHI field school gave me an experience I shan’t forget. I was grateful for the opportunity to join such a great bunch of people in the context of examining one of my favourite historic structures, a broch. Digging to reveal answers to an ever-growing list of academic questions around the Iron Age society that built it on the beautiful isles of Orkney.  

The Cairns is found on the eastern side of South Ronaldsay near Windwick Bay. A stunning rural location. The site itself was “under the plough”; sleeping unobtrusively beneath the ground before 2006 after geophysical survey led to excavation. 

As the crew working within the broch wore hard hats as a health and safety measure, I was helped to imagine, strangely, that I was working in a construction site and thus appreciate the tremendous amount of stone and energy required to build such a huge masterpiece of human engineering. Truly astonishing. It would originally have stood at 10 metres tall, with apparently another few meters on top of that for the conical roof (I have my own theory on this, however), with walls 5 meters wide at the base.  

I imagine that the broch walls during the Iron Age were festooned with wild wallflowers. And if the surrounding countryside at the time produced similar wildflowers as it does today, it must have been a remarkable sight. 

The excavation process involved an environmental sampling strategy of 100% of depositional layers from inside the broch and 20 litres from each of the external “village” dwelling contexts. Frustratingly it will take a few years before the results of these are established. (Oh, how I wish I had a magic wand!)  

The word that comes to mind in relation to the number of small finds at the Cairns is “fruitful”. Barely a day went by without a raft of exciting “treasure” being unearthed, ready to convey clues about what life was like for the broch residents. Continuous surprises which kept the spirits of the archaeologists high as they peeled away the layers of occupational evidence with forensic scrutiny. Each was a revelation; from antler, bone, shells, pottery, glass and pot lids to stone tools, equipment for clothing and metal production and even bodily adornments. All these helped to create in my mind’s eye a world of impressive ingenuity and craftsmanship. Fresh ideas, fresh ingredients, and a lifestyle that played out in harmony with the environment and an ethos that preached not what you can do with, but what you can do without. 

During my two-week field school, along with five other students, I was given “toolbox talks” or lessons, on using a dumpy level to measure the height of features for the spatial record. We also covered planning; drawing outlines of surface features from a grid square framework 1m sq. onto permatrace graph paper at a scale of 1:20. I also learned from a seasoned archaeologist how to do a section drawing of a wall that was to be removed. Behind which weirdly, on my final afternoon, a hidden chamber appeared. So exciting! (It just makes you wonder what else is down there).  

On my second day I was stationed at the UHI college to gain the experience of floatation tank and the environmental sampling process. Sifting the dried remains through a series of graded sieves before searching through them for the tiniest evidential anthropological remnants such as fish bones or burnt cereal grains. I found a burnt seal’s tooth. 

I was left to excavate in the structure B2 area, chasing a wall in an analogous manner to what I was doing at the Tarradale Barns dig last summer, however this time I had to fill out a context sheet and keep photographic records of the process. I also filled a bulk finds tray with bones and a heat split cobble stone that I found in the process. I even unearthed a piece of pottery which was registered and recorded as a small find: where a GPS positioning system logs its spatial data and it is bagged and recorded seperately. 

My experience came in useful in the same manner as last year when I spotted the Roman glass, while volunteering for a week, when I spotted a volunteer scraping clay from her trowel with what I recognised as a pot lid. This was confirmed by the second in command and so saved from the spoil heap!  

On the Sunday I took a trip to Hoy to see the “Old Man” and visit the Dwarfie Stone for the first time. The Dwarfie Stone is a carved out huge rectangular block of stone which served originally as a burial chamber on the slope of a hill. What wonderful resonance it had inside. 

Get more amazing details from the daily Cairns Blogs at: https://archaeologyorkney.com/  or join “Friends of the Cairns” on Facebook. 

Archaeology Orkney – UHI Archaeology Institute 

What people call serendipity sometimes is just having your eyes open.

Jose Manuel Barroso

In July of 2020 I was walking around the edge of a field at Cullerne Farm, just south of Findhorn Village on the south Moray Firth coast, very close to where I have lived for many years, when I spotted some long grass and earth mounds out in the field that I hadn’t noticed before.  A closer look revealed that the landowner had been digging a borrow pit for sand and gravel, and had gone down as far as five or six metres.  This revealed  a nice cross section of the local geology: the shingle of a raised beach just below the surface, and below that many different layers of pebbles and sand, and at the very bottom a 0.5m+ deposit of near white sand, evidently dating to an earlier period in the last ice age, or early Holocene, the period following the ice age. 

This raised beach represents the highest point the sea reached in this area during the post-glacial period when a rising relative sea level overtook the still-depressed land surface, and rose as much as 6.5m above current levels in the Moray Firth approximately seven thousand years ago (Shennan et al. 2018).  Subsequently, the sea level rise slowed down, but the still rising land surface then caused the relative sea level to drop, and as it did so, it left a series of raised beaches between Cullerne and the coast 760m to the north. 

On closer inspection I noticed that at the eastern edge of the pit, and threatening to fall in, were some fragments of bone, shells, and charred wood.  I asked the landowner, Ed Bichan, if I could have a bit of a furtle, and he agreed.  What follows is an account of the archaeology that was uncovered during several phases over the next two and a half years.

On that first day, Ed kindly came out with his digger and removed about 20m² of the topsoil to the west of the pit edge.  This revealed the midden below, which consisted of an unsorted mix of shells, bone, fire-cracked stone, and charcoal.  This, along with the material threatening to fall in the pit, persuaded me that this archaeology needed to be rescued.  So, with Ed’s permission, I began by excavating the material at the edge of the pit.  This appeared to be a structured deposit, and contained a 32cm hammer stone with damage at both ends resting on a partial red deer antler, and close by were a sheep/goat mandible and six cattle molars which had been removed from the jaw/mandible. 

Following this I proceeded to remove more of the midden material, away from the open borrow pit.  Soon the dark outlines of pits began to appear.  In all, there were eight pits and one stake hole, none of which contained midden material, suggesting that they represented an earlier phase of occupation of the site.  One pit did have a hammer stone resting on the surface of its fill.  I will describe the finds and features in more detail below.

I was interested in getting a radiocarbon date, and Ed generously offered to pay for one.  I settled on a fragment of the deer antler, as this was interpreted as part of a structured deposit, and it would allow me to date this particular event.  These are thought to be offerings, or votive deposits—a way of giving thanks or asking for an intervention.  The date came back as 1205–1016 cal BC (prob. 95.4%), which places it in the Late Bronze Age.  But the earlier phase suggested by the pits was to be echoed by some of the stone tools, as we will see below.

What is ‘natural’ after all?—a cautionary tale

On another walk around the field in the following March, I walked out to look at the previously excavated area.  In the interim, sheep had been introduced to the field for grazing.  I could see the site had been well trampled, and was surprised to see that the trampling had revealed several more features in the previously excavated area.  These turned out to be one pit and a shallow dark deposit.  This was my first encounter with ‘false natural’.  It seems that ploughing, possibly over many decades or even centuries, had scattered sand and shingle from the raised beach over some of the earlier phases of the site.  So I sprang into action and excavated these additional features (Illus. 2; deposit (122) and pit [120]), which became phase 2 of the excavations.  At this time, I said to Ed that if he ever wanted to remove more sand and gravel I would be happy to come and look out for additional archaeology. 

He gave me a ring in January 2023, and so I went out and watched as he stripped an area of approximately 55m².  This would lead to a third phase of excavations and included another seven pits, mostly shallow, four of which had halos of orange, heat-affected earth surrounding them (Illus. 4; left side of the plan; Photo 9).  None contained midden material, and taken together were not suggestive of a structure—though at this point we only have a partial picture—and the charred material and heat-affected earth surrounding four of them does suggest the possibility of timber posts burning in situ (Photo 9).

 The last pit excavated, pit [301], appeared to be a post hole, almost a metre deep, which contained two fragments of a deliberately broken granite saddle quern, with a small cup mark on the reverse side (Photo 12).  This was the only pit suggestive of a structure

The stone tools

The stone tools included five hammer stones (one a ‘giant’ at 32 cm); two stones with dished surfaces, probably for grinding materials (Photo 10); several pieces of unretouched flint; and the saddle quern.

Possible Mesolithic component: There were eight worked stone tools found at the various stages of the excavations which hint at possible long-term use of the site by different cultures.  These are what I have been calling truncated discoidal flakes (TDFs; Photo 11).  They seem to be a variation on the well-known discoidal flake or knife, but instead of having an oval shape, have had one end broken off to form a flat base.  I have found more than 200 of these both scattered in the nearby Findhorn Dunes, and also at a multi-period site in the dunes (Findhorn Dunes Site; id 15880, Trove.scot). 

They are primarily associated with deposits of fire-cracked stone, which in places was associated with a burnt old land surface, for which I expect to have a radiocarbon date later in 2025, but it seems likely to be Mesolithic, which suggests that these TDFs are also Mesolithic.  In that case, we may have at least two phases of occupation at the midden: a Mesolithic phase represented by the pits, TDFs, and shells; and a second one comprising the animal bone, the post hole, and the structured deposit, all dating to the Bronze Age.  The unstratified nature of the midden deposit may be due to disturbance by the plough, which made it difficult to determine phasing.

The broken saddle quern, found in two pieces in a post hole and likely used as post packers, must have been deliberately broken, as it was made from 0.1m thick granite.  It has a small pecked cup mark on the reverse.  This could date from the Neolithic right through to the earlier Iron Age.

What was missing?

At sites dating to a particular period, it’s worth asking ‘what are we not seeing?’  In this case, there was no pot nor copper alloy objects.  Neither were there any arrow heads or scrapers that could be identified as Bronze Age.  It suggests that this site was limited to a narrow range of activities—perhaps only the processing of shellfish and animals.  The hammer stones may well have been used to beak up the bones into the many fragments recovered.  But we must reserve judgement until the post hole is further investigated—ie, is it part of a round house?

Analysis of the faunal assemblage

Gordon Noble, at the University of Aberdeen, generously offered to have the faunal assemblage analysed, and recruited a recent graduate of their Osteology Masters program, Veronica Lee.  Her analysis showed that the animal bones were heavily fragmented, and the majority (65%) could not be identified to species.

Of the identified fragments, cow accounted for 24%, sheep/goat 8%, pig 2%, and deer 1%. The animal remains in the structured deposit (102) included red deer antler, sheep/goat mandible, and cattle teeth, as well as unidentified bone fragments. The assemblage consisted largely of adult cattle, likely slaughtered at 3–4 years of age, though the wear on three incisors suggests animals of 6–9 years-of-age.

Coles and Taylor (1973) excavated a midden on Culbin Sands several kilometres to the west, which was dated to between 1669 and 1285 cal BC.  They also found the bone of cattle and sheep/goat and reached an interesting conclusion. They suggested that the area would have been unsuitable for agriculture at the time and that the animals may have been rustled from farmland to the south.  Cullerne Farm is at the very edge of the farmland in this area, and borders on the Findhorn Dunes to the north, part of an extensive dunes complex that, in the Bronze Age, would have extended for many miles along the south Moray coast, at least from Nairn to Lossiemouth, and included the Culbin Sands.  Did the sand dunes area represent a refuge for lawless types preying on the settled agriculturalists just a short distance away?

Discussion

It’s easy to see how cattle rustling may have emerged within what Gordon Childe called ‘semi-nomadism’ in the early Bronze Age, in which the people were still partially dependent on hunting, fishing, and collecting shellfish, and for whom cereal cultivation may have made a relatively small contribution to their diet (Childe 1935).  This way of life would have proved difficult in years of climate extremes, when crops may have failed or the usually reliable game migrations were disturbed.

One of the intriguing features of the Cullerne midden is the probable post hole containing the saddle quern at the northern edge of the deposit.  Further investigation will be required to determine whether this is part of a roundhouse, and if so, where it fits in the chronology of the site—Bronze Age or Iron Age.

Notably, there is plenty of other evidence for prehistoric settlement in this field.  Just 50m or so to the southeast are two circular crop marks that may represent roundhouses (Illus 5), one apparently with a porch. These could also be Bronze Age, but alternatively may represent an Iron Age phase of occupation.  Other linear features may represent enclosures and souterrains (Greig 2002). In this same image Medieval rig and furrow is clearly visible, and in fact three Medieval pot handles and other pot sherds have been recovered during field walking here.

The Cullerne midden is just one of many that have been found on both sides of Findhorn Bay, many on the Culbin Sands side to the west.  Most of these cannot be seen now, as Culbin is largely forested, and the leaf litter and ground cover obscure the ground surface. But George Black, who carried out a survey of the local archaeology in 1891 said that most of these middens had already been disturbed by treasure hunters.  And the rate at which the sand and gravel coastline is being eroded suggests that there would have been many more, that are now lost to the sea.  Approximately 50m of the shore has been lost since 1945.  It is difficult to gauge, but in all likelihood hundreds of meters of coast have probably been lost since the Bronze Age.

—————

This site, formerly accessed through the Canmore website, is now accessible with the same id number on www.trove.scot

References

Black, G.F. (1891) ‘Report on the archaeological examination of the Culbin Sands, Elginshire, obtained under the Victoria Jubilee Gift of His Excellency Dr R H Gunning, FSA Scot’, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 25, pp. 498–511.

Childe, V.G. (1935) The Prehistory of Scotland. 1st edn. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., Ltd, pp. 285.

Coles, J.M. and Taylor, J.J. (1973) ‘The excavation of a midden in the Culbin Sands, Morayshire’, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 102, pp. 87–100.

Greig, M. (2002) ‘‘Aerial Reconnaissance, Moray (sites recorded while preparing a management plan for RAF Kinloss)’‘, Discovery and Excavation in Scotland, 3, pp. 80–81.

Shennan, I., Bradley, S.L. and Edwards, R. (2018) ‘Relative seal level changes and crustal movements in Britain and Ireland since the Last Glacial Maximum’, Quaternary Science Reviews, 188, pp. 143–159.

www.trove.scot.  Historical Environment Record for Scotland

Easter Raitts is a deserted township to the north of Lynchat, near Kingussie.  It was selected as an appropriate site for excavation to fulfil two purposes – as a model to provide data for the reconstruction of a highland township at the Highland Folk Park in Newtonmore and to provide practical excavation experience for students of the Certificate in Field Archaeology, which was presented by Aberdeen University in the latter half of the 1990s.

EXACAVATION

A survey of the site was done in 1995, followed by a season of excavation in 1996.

In 1997 the first tranche of students  joined professional archaeologists at Easter Raitts.  They focussed on Structures 21 and 24 and feature 14 (the cobbled yard).

Structure 21 was a longhouse with main living area and an annex which was used as a byre.  There were several phases of floor, suggesting many years of use and late C18/early C19 pottery was found in this structure, which suggests that it was in use as a dwelling up to the time the township was cleared in the early C19.

Structure 24 comprised an early longhouse, a later stone building and a cobbled yard.  Suggestions as to the purpose of the cobbled feature ranged from storage of peats, hay or other feed for animals, or for animals.  After the period of human occupation this structure was used to house animals and the suggestion that the platform and the thick stone walls indicated the presence of pigs led to the house being dubbed “the pig-man’s house”.  This assumption was proved to be wrong when the structure was reconstructed at the Folk Park.  Thanks to Meryl Marshall for the photos of the excavation in 1997.

My first season at Easter Raitts was in the summer of 1998 as part of the second tranche of students.  Focus was on Structures 6, 21, 15 & 26.  The latter two were features associated with Structures 21 and 24 and explored in an attempt to find a midden.

S 26 was a scooped area near the entrance to Structure 21.  This had evidence of paving with post holes and a dip which might indicate a wall and suggested an outbuilding of some kind.

Structure 15 was a deliberate scoop dug out of a natural clay deposit enclosed by a revetment and a low bank.  It was suggested that this was to provide clay which could be used for floors.

Structure 6 was a long barn which was a complex structure, abutting the head-dyke.  It had 5 separate sections made up of an original building with four additions to the east and south. This structure had evidence of having been constructed as a barn, with additions to accommodate animals, unlike some of the other buildings which had been built as houses, but later adapted for animal use.

By the 1999 season it was felt that enough had been learned about the township for the Folk Park and excavation was concluded on structures 26 and 21.  Attention turned to a platform outside the head dyke to allow the final tranches of students of the Certificate course to complete their module.

AFTER THE ARCHAEOLOGISTS LEFT

Evidence of the buildings and walls can still be seen on the ground.  The following photographs were taken in 1999

BAILE GEAN

One of the objectives of the excavation was to provide data for the reconstruction of pre-improvement buildings at Newtonmore Folk Park, under the guidance of Ross Noble.  Though what remained of the township on the ground was the footings of buildings and walls, excavation uncovered hearths, paving and drains for the management of animals and evidence of entrances, crucks and the use of turves for the walls.  This was summarised in the interim report of 1997 –

The evidence of the buildings’ method of construction, particularly the longhouses, accord with what we know of how Highland earth structures were built: with walls of turf resting upon low stone footings, with timber crucks supporting roofs of turf; perhaps with inner skins of stone or, in the case of creel houses, hurdling, and with central hearths.

One feature that Ross was keen to find was evidence of “tailforks”, and this was identified in Structure 24, described in the interim report (1997)  – 

timber members radiating down and out from the end of the roof tree to give the building a rounded terminal.  The bottom ends of the timbers may have rested on stone pads in the ground, with a turf wall built around and between them up to the eaves of the thatched roof […] Such a method of construction would have left just those traces found in the excavation.

My first visit to the Folk Park was in 1999 and at that point several houses had been completed.  The long barn and the kiln were both under construction. The long barn can be seen in photo 16 in the background.  This is one building which has not survived and is now just footings.  Bob Powell, who took over from Ross Noble in 2002 commented that it was never thatched and had to be demolished because it had become unstable.  He also felt that the walls were too high and took too many turves. 

In the early years, an attempt was made to give a real impression of a working township, with re-enactors and animals, like the Scots Dumpies, seen in the photo below.  It also included putting pigs in the enclosure of S24.  The pigs very quickly rooted up the cobbles in the yard, so it was apparent that this feature had not been constructed for pigs! 

In response to the E-Coli scare, public access to the animals was restricted and eventually they were removed.  In addition, H&S required the insertion of a rear door to the Creel House because of its internal measurements.  In those days visitors had free access to wander round the interior of the buildings.

The kiln barn was under construction in 1999, and the structure was based on one found in Glen Banchor since no kiln had been found at Easter Raitts (though there was one at Wester Raitts).  This is one of the structures which Bob Powell has adapted to something which he feels is more likely to be closer to what was available to the inhabitants at Raitts.

The township was named Baile Gean and over the intervening years (can it really be 25?) many changes have been made under Bob’s supervision.  The most obvious is the change to thatching the roofs with reed, readily available at Insh Marshes.  By altering the pitch of the roofs, there was less danger of water getting in and rotting the timbers.

NOSAS

In a very real sense, NOSAS started at Easter Raitts.   The first group of students wished to continue with archaeology after they had completed their certificate and formed into a group.  Subsequently other students joined and gradually the membership expanded as the activities became known.  Now NOSAS has a national reputation in archaeological circles – and it all started on a hillside above Lynchat! 

Further information on Easter Raitts can be found online in Canmore, the HER and Arch Highland.  There’s also a brief outline of the beginnings of NOSAS on the website, with a photograph of the original group. 

‘Have you had a look at that place over there with the round things?’ 

That intriguing question sent Historic Assynt’s Chair, Dave MacBain exploring on the south side of Loch Roe opposite Achmelvich, and the round things turned out to be a mixture of hollows of various sizes where millstones and querns had been excavated out of a low cliff on the shore of the Loch. In and among the extraction hollows were numerous examples of failed and abandoned attempts to create querns, and in a number of these cases, later attempts had been made to excavate even smaller querns from some of the abandoned blanks! 

There is absolutely no local knowledge of this quarry even among those older residents with a fund of stories told by their parents and grandparents such as the person who alerted us to the quarry’s existence but had no knowledge of what it was or when it had been last used.

That initial exploration took place just before the onset of Covid and further more detailed investigation was put on hold for a few years.  The opportunity to conduct a more detailed survey and create a photographic record occurred at the time of Historic Assynt’s 25^th centenary celebrations, but the event turned out to be a less enjoyable experience because of consistent, torrential rain, extensive seaweed cover and very slippery surfaces!

The Lewisian Gneiss bedrock of the north west highland fringe is cut through by numerous volcanic dykes. Some are quite soft and have eroded to leave hollows and clefts in the bedrock, but others are hard upstanding ridges running for considerable distances across the landscape.  The Ardroe quern quarry has been excavated into a cross section through one such hard dykes where it outcrops in a cliff and short stretch of foreshore at the sheltered inner end of Loch Roe. So whoever chose the site originally was obviously well aware of the suitability of these dykes.  A few extractions have taken place into the cliff itself but the majority of the visible hollows and failed attempts are found along the foreshore as it dips into the sea. Some are only covered by the highest tides and have generally survived well but those lower down which are covered by most tides show signs of considerable damage and erosion and some have almost certainly been destroyed. All are occasionally battered by those storms which penetrate this far into the generally sheltered loch.

One of the hollows suggests the possible extraction of a small millstone suitable for a horizontal mill and there is one such a mill on a burn running down into the loch about a hundred metres away.  The majority the hollows and the failed attempts at extraction are for more domestic hand querns of a size and design entirely compatible both with the 9 iron age querns discovered at Clachtoll Broch and others from as recently as the 18^th and 19^th centuries.  The smallest failed extractions are all smaller than 20cms diameter and initially we were at a loss to try and explain what they may have been used for.

A possible solution to that particular question came at a NOSAS Monthly Archaeological Discussion (MAD) night when the discovery of these particularly small querns was mentioned as part of a general discussion on the wide diversity of different kinds of mills, and also the range of items that might have been ground in domestic querns in relatively isolated rural areas before the 19^th century.  Eric Grant mentioned the extensive use of snuff in Scotland and its domestic grinding before the era of industrial snuff mills and also mentioned the domestic grinding of pepper and other spices.

Subsequently Eric has given a detailed and fascinating exposition of snuff at his March 2025 MAD night presentation. If you were unable to attend that talk and the subsequent discussion, then watch the recording which is now available here.

Putting together the various strands of evidence from site visits and the survey of Ardroe quarry and from Eric’s talk and extensive knowledge we can make a few tentative conclusions;

• The lack of any local stories or memories suggests that the quarry was out of use well before the start of the 20^th century.
• The preponderance of domestic sized extractions and only one possible millstone extraction, which is also the best preserved site, suggests that the latter was removed sometime after the end of Thirlage in 1799, but that many of the domestic querns could have been extracted before that date. This suggestion would also be supported by the erosion and damage to the lowest lying extraction sites.
• Given that stylistically the domestic querns could be from anytime in the last 2,000 years makes it difficult to gauge a start date for the site, but the small spice and snuff querns most probably date from between the 16^th and early 19^th centuries.
• At the moment we are unaware of any other quern quarries that have these very small spice or snuff querns, but that be solely due to the lack of any other research about the archaeology of snuff other than Eric’s!

Alternative ideas and suggestions welcome.

Postcript by Alan Thompson

During Scotland’s Rock Art Project (ScRAP) we visited many known and possible rock art sites and often spent time looking at outcrops and boulders in the area.  Sometimes we came across carving in the rock which was not the usual cup and ring type.  For example, at Dun Creagach 2 near Loch Naver the panel had this rather unusual boss

While we were recording it Dave Coombs was searching the area and came across another panel which we recorded as Dun Creagach 3.  It has a few possible cups but more conspicuously some small circular cut-outs which look rather like the much larger ones we have seen at places where full size millstones were extracted.  The rock is a fairly fine schist.

Our attention was drawn to a paper co-authored by Dr Fraser Hunter, ‘New Aspects of Rotary Querns in Scotland’ which analyses finds and has a section on Iron Age Miniature Querns.  After various contacts and discussions, we concluded “It is not certain that any of these markings are rock art, and the ring shapes are more characteristic of miniature and/or medieval ‘pot querns’.”

We reported our findings through the ScRAP network and heard about the similar but much more extensive discoveries at Broughmore Wood, near Balfron, north of Glasgow.  Here the rock is a fine sandstone, and is a much more obviously a quarried area.

Clearly a lot of effort, not always successful, was put into extracting these circular pieces of stone.  There were various suggestions as to what they might have been used for, the main one being small rotary hand querns, maybe for grinding herbs, minerals, medicines or pigments.  Alternative suggestions include toy querns, or more plausibly circular grindstones – the grinding surface would have been the edge with the need for a good circular shape and central hole, not perhaps so necessary for a simple rotary hand quern.

This article describes the chance finding of an early 19^th century map of Muir of Ord, the family who took it to Somerset, the repair of that map when it was returned to the Highlands, and the historical and cultural context in which the map was made.

A Chance Finding

As part of the NOSAS project in 2018 to scan the Lovat Estate maps – the Lovat Estate Map Project – we approached other estates to see if they too would like their maps scanned. These could then be uploaded, along with the Lovat maps, to the extensive online map collection of the National Library of Scotland. This process converted maps in a drawer viewable by very few people, to online maps viewable by anyone in the world with internet access. The project scanned over 400 maps in the Lovat Estate archive, plus an additional 25 maps that were from other estates. 

I wondered if the Ord Estate, situated just west of the centre of Muir of Ord in Easter Ross and marching with Lovat, had any old maps that could be scanned. The estate was formerly owned by the Fraser-Mackenzie family. An online search produced an address for a Fraser-Mackenzie lady, currently living in Englishton, near Bunchrew. A letter to that address evoked an email response from her son, Leo, that started a conversation with his cousin, Colin, who was living in Somerset. Colin was the son of the last Fraser-Makenzie person to own the Ord Estate. A more detailed description of the Mackenzies of Ord can be found in a companion article here.

Colin sent me images of an old map that his mother had kept in a drawer. The images were fascinating but sad, as the map was significantly damaged. It also bore the injury of many attempts at repair. Selotape on old documents is never a good idea! This however was the only existing map in the ownership of the Fraser-Mackenzies.

The images showed, apart from the damage, that the map was both undated and unsigned (by the map-maker). However, 1829 was written in old handwriting on the back.

The map was 2.18m long, 0.95m wide, and wound round a pole. Titled Ord and Ardnagrask, it showed the extent of the Ord Estate in the first quarter of the 19^th century, and its marches with neighbouring estates.

Unfortunately, the email conversation with Colin petered out, and the connection was lost. In September 2023, however, connection with the Fraser-Mackenzie family was re-established, this time with Colin’s son, Richard. His father was not well, and subsequently died in May 2024. However, it became clear that the family would be happy to return the map to the Highlands, by gifting it to NOSAS who could then arrange to repair it. So, with formal legal hand-over completed, a NOSAS member collected the map in December 2023 and drove it back up to its origins.

Conservation Repair of the map

A generous grant from the Goodwill Fund of Glen Wyvis Distillery in Dingwall provided the money to get the map restored. This was undertaken by the Senior Conservator, Richard Aitken, and his colleagues at the Highlife Highland’s Conservation Service based at the Highland Archive & Registration Centre (HARC) in Inverness.

The following paragraphs summarises the processes that the map went through in the conservation workshop. A more detailed description of those processes can be found here, in Richard Aitken’s report.

The map, as received by the Conservation Service was in very poor condition, both sides of the map being covered in loose dust and ingrained dirt. The original lining paper was delaminating from poor storage conditions. Relatively recently, the edges of the map had been repaired using self-adhesive cloth duct tape in an attempt to stop the map deteriorating further. This had caused the map to buckle with ridges, instead of lying flat.

The plan was first cleaned using an aerated latex sponge, and soft goats-hair brush. Most of the sellotape adhesive had broken down and dried, allowing for dry removal. The end wooden battens were removed. The edging cloth tape duct tape was easily removed following which the map was prepared for removing from its cloth backing and instead being supported by Okawara 60gsm Japanese paper backing. Removing the original lining by simply peeling it away from the back of the map in section strips was followed by sandwiching it between sheets of polythene. This allowed the map to be attached to the wall of the workshop for further treatment. Excess dirt and migrant acids were removed by bone-foldering and sponging lightly through the polythene. This process is repeated until water removed runs almost clear. The map is allowed to fully dry and then removed from the wall and rehoused in a custom made archival polyester roll.

After collecting from the conservation workshop, the map was taken to the map library of the National Library of Scotland (NLS) in Causewayside, Edinburgh. Chris Fleet, map curator at the NLS, had been instrumental in uploading the digital images that came from the Lovat Estate map project in 2018, and is a valued friend of NOSAS. He arranged for this map to be scanned and digitised in Edinburgh, and then uploaded to the NLS website: https://maps.nls.uk/estates/rec/12114. After the map returned from being scanned, it was donated to the Highland Archive, where it will be stored in perpetuity in environmentally controlled conditions.

Why was the map in Somerset?

A full description of the Fraser-Mackenzie family of Ord can be found on the companion NOSAS page, entitled The Mackenzies of Ord. The Mackenzies connection to Ord dates from the early 17^th century. John Mackenzie, 1^st of Ord, was given the title to land on the outskirts of what is now Muir of Ord in 1607. On his death in 1644 the estate passed through an unbroken line to Alexander Mackenzie, VIII^th of Ord.

On his death in 1899 the estate passed sequentially to three of his children, all of whom died without male issue. On the death of the last Mackenzie of Ord in 1945, the youngest daughter of Alexander, the estate therefore passed to her great-nephew Colin, who was then eight years old. He was living with his widowed mother Dora Elizabeth (Babs) Fraser-Mackenzie in a cottage on the estate.

A telephone conversation with Colin Fraser-Mackenzie’s widow, Verona, in August 2024 helped to clarify how a Ross-shire map was found in Somerset. When Babs Fraser-Mackenzie died in 1991, it fell to her son Colin, and his wife Verona, to clear the house of Croc na Boull. They found an old map of the Ord Estate. They took it, with other family belongings, down to their home in Somerset. Although the map was now known by the Somerset family, its significance and historical importance were unrecognised until my email contact in 2023.

The map itself – who was its’ maker?

The map is unsigned by its’ cartographer. Although the map is undated, 1829 is written in old script on the back. The map has some similarities to the maps of George Campbell Smith (fl.1804-1868), who was certainly working in the area at this time. However, there are also some dissimilarities, so it is hard to be sure exactly who the map-maker was. A summary of Smith’s life and maps, written by Douglas Lockhart, can be found in vol 33 of Cairt, which is the house journal of the Scottish Maps Forum. The map definitely bears some annotations in Smith’s hand dated 1832, whoever the original cartographer was.

So, from serendipitous connections and communications, a map of a Highland estate found in a drawer in Somerset is now freely available on a Scottish website. After scanning, the physical map itself was donated to the Highland Archive, where it will be protected and kept for posterity.