Monument record MHG11256 - Cnoc Dubh

(NC 7094 0654) Undescribed feature. OS 1:10,000 map, (1970)

This is a hut circle, partially heather-covered and set into a slope, which measures 8.8m in diameter within a collapsed wall standing up to 0.6m high, and faced internally with boulders. An outer facing slab exposed in SE arc indicates a wall width of 2.2m at this point. A break in SW arc of wall possibly indicates position of the entrance. An arc of a heather-covered bank, 2.5m broad and 1.2m high, extends from NW side of the hut in a curve to partially enclosure a level area 9.5m in diameter. To NW of hut for distance of 150m are a number of scattered stone clearance heaps indicating associated cultivation, but no measurable field plots are discernible. Further detached area of clearance to SE of the hut.
Revised at 1:10,000. Visited by OS (N K B) 12 June 1981.

Three hut-circles (ROG95 177-9) are disposed along the crest and SW side of a heather-covered ridge to the NW of the Torbreck Burn. The previously identified hut-circle (ROG95 177, NC 7094 0653) is levelled into a low knoll and measures 9m in diameter within a boulder-faced bank 1.5m in thickness and 1m in height. The interior is dished and slopes up to the entrance, which is on the SW. An arc of bank to the NW described by the OS in 1981 may be the slighted remains of an earlier hut-circle (ROG95 178), measuring 8.8m in diameter internally. The third hut-circle (ROG95 179, NC 7087 0652) is situated on the leading edge of the terrace to the W and measures 7.7m in diameter within an earth-and-stone bank spread to 1.7m in thickness and 0.3m in height. The SE-SW arc of the hut-cicle wall has been removed and the interior may have been ploughed.
The majority of the small cairns (ROG95 900) lie on the better drained ground to the NW of the hut-circles, others lie immediately to the SE; they measure up to 5m in diameter and 0.4m in height. Fragmentary lynchets and rickles of stones are interspersed amongst the cairns, generally accentuating natural breaks of slope. The smoothness of the ground between the cairns varies considerably, possibly a result of differential intensities of heather burning.
(ROG95 177-9, 900)
Visited by RCAHMS (DCC) 14 May 1995