Monument record MHG10266 - Drove Stance - Kinbrace

NC82NE 57 8656 2868.

This rectangular stock-enclosure is situated on the E bank of the River Helmsdale, immediately S of a drain which empties into it, some 850m W of Kinbrace Farm. It measures 69.5m from NNW to SSE by 35m transversely within earthen banks spread to 2.5m in thickness and 0.5m in height; it is sub-divided into two unequal compartments. <1>
(KILD91 362)
Visited by RCAHMS (PJD) 3 June 1991.

This site was visited, photographed and surveyed by D Glass on the 26th of January 2012. Glass proposed that this site was a drove stance. He described the structure as follows:
"The stance is situated on a grassy haugh on the east bank of the River Helmsdale and consists of a rectangular enclosure with two compartments. The earthen dykes are up to one metre in height but are poorly preserved and discontinuous in places. In the south dyke there is a probable entrance near the south east corner and a second gap further to the west.
A mound ten metres north of the enclosure is suggestive of a small building but might be a natural feature.
It is likely that two drove roads from the north converged at or near to this location – the Ca na Catanach (MHG 835) from Caithness and the route from Syre in Strathnaver – while the drove road south from this point enters the hill ground near Borrobol and continues to Invershin. The stance lies 3.5 km south of the site of the former drovers’ inn at Achentoul. It is possible that the stance passed out of use when this inn (which is likely to have had its own stance) came into operation, or it may have been used as an alternative site for assembling droves and holding them overnight.
The monument is currently recorded as a Stock Enclosure but its configuration and location indicates that it was probably a drove stance." <2>