Monument record MHG10413 - Rhaoine

NC60NE 19.00 6531 0509

NC60NE 19.01 6539 0516 Burnt Mound

Remains of 18th/19th century depopulation.
Visited by OS (JM) 3 October 1980.

A township, comprising six unroofed buildings, four enclosures and a head-dyke is depicted on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Sutherland 1879, sheets xcv).
Information from RCAHMS (AKK) 19 August 1998.

The remains of this township are situated on the N side of Strathfleet, centred on a terrace about 30m above the haughland of the River Fleet. They comprise the footings of at least fifteen buildings and huts, a corn-drying kiln, several enclosures, traces of rig cultivation and at least two stretches of a lynchet. A burnt mound was recorded at NC 6539 0516, and this is described under NC60NE 19.01.
The more substantial buildings are disposed in a line along a ridge which marks the leading edge of the terrace. Three of these buildings, which stand out as being particularly large, were probably dwellings. One, at the NW end of the ridge, measures internally 17.5m by 2.6m and has an outshot, possibly a bedneuk, at the ESE end of its NNE side (ROG95 207). The walls of this building are reduced and spread, but preservation is much better at the other two, which stand close together forming part of the SSW side of a sub-rectangular enclosure. The larger of the two buildings (ROG95 204) measures 20.4m by 3.1m within faced-rubble walls 0.8m thick and up to 0.4m high. A drain around its upper (WNW) end leads off down the slope to the SW. The interior is divided into two compartments by a step down towards the ESE; the entrance leads into the lower compartment, down the length of which there runs a stone-lined drain, running out at the S corner, while the upper compartment has a bed recess on each side. Two later features have been built over the remains of this building: a small circular pen at the WNW end and a hut at the ESE end, the latter measuring internally 3.9m by 2.2m with an entrance on the SSW. The other building (ROG95 202) measures 14.9m by 2.8m within walls about 0.7m thick and 0.4m high which have been buttressed in two places on the SSW side. Steps across the interior indicate that it was divided into three compartments, and the only visible entrance leads into the lowest (ESE) compartment at the S corner. An outshot extends 4.2m to the ESE, and there is a second outshot on the SSW side, built against one of the buttresses. This outshot is of a similar size to the bedneuks in the other buildings, but there does not appear to have been any access to it from the interior.
Between these two buildings there is a corn-drying kiln with an attached barn (NC 6532 0508, ROG95 203). The bowl, which has been set into the ridge, measures 1.7m in diameter and 1m in depth within walls 1.1m thick. There is a ledge around the top of the bowl, providing support for the frame on which the grain would have been spread, and the flue is on the SSW, opening into the barn which measures internally 3.3m by 2.3m.
The other buildings on the ridge measure internally between 7.6m and 10.3m in length and between 1.9m and 2.8m in breadth (ROG95 200-1, 205-6, 478). One of them (ROG95 478) has two compartments and another (ROG95 201) has three, but there are few clues to the function of any individual building except one (ROG95 206) whose oppposed entrances suggest that it served as a barn. Between and around these structures there are a number of small enclosures and several fragments of walling, some of which may be the remains of earlier buildings. Traces of curved rigs survive at the NW and SE ends of the ridge, and on the steep slopes to the SW there are traces of lynchetting. Stony banks, presumably the remains of a head-dyke, run N and E from, respectively, the NW and SE ends of the ridge, each terminating at the base of the cliffs on the hillside above.
To the NE of the main group of buildings, towards the rear of the terrace (most of the ground on which is wet and boggy) and on the hillside above it, there are the remains of at least six huts, measuring up to 7.3m by 2.5m internally (ROG95 773), and several roughly oval enclosures. Most of the huts are subrectangular, though the largest (ROG95 773) has rounded ends.
(ROG95 200-7, 478-80, 482, 772-3, 916-6)
Visited by RCAHMS (SDB) 7 March and 17 May 1995