Monument record MHG10704 - Garbh-Allt

NC73NE 4 785 390.

Centred on NC 785 390, in rising moorland open to W, is a settlement of four hut circles (A-D) in association with a field system. The latter, about six hectares in area, is distinguished by occasional lynchets and mounds of stone clearance, the latter numerous in the environs of huts A and D, on average spaced10-20m apart, but less so elsewhere; one or two cultivation plots are discernible about 30m by 20m. There are outlying sporadic heaps of further field clearance. The huts, generally, are peat-silted and reduced, but appear of a similar type. Internal dimensions, in order 'A'-'D', are 9.5 by 8.5m, 9m diameter, 7.5m diameter and 9.5m diameter; an entrance in each case is from the S quarter and in the oval hut is on the line of the longer axis. Hut C, set slightly into the slope, has a wall too obscure to warrant description, but in the other huts the walls are mainly seen as a rubble spread 2m broad and standing at best to 0.4m high. In 'A' several facing stones are visible in the wall exterior in the N half. 'B' has a fairly complete circle of an inner wall-facing of smallish earthfast slabs. In 'D' the most robust hut and set on a rise, an outer wall-facing of contiguous boulder slab is evident in the SW quarter, and also a standing slab in the outer W edge of the entrance.
At NC 7852 3998, on a rise is an overgrown and tenuous but apparently rectangular footing, about 10 by 5.0m, of probable 18/19th century origin.
Surveyed at 1:10,560. Visited by OS (J M) 22 February 1977.