Monument record MHG12996 - Possible Shieling Hut, Allt Garbh

Recorded in survey by Dr Thomas C. Welsh, Sept. 1998.
See assoc. docs.
EM 18/08/2004

NC02NE 1 0660 2800.

"On the bounds of Clachtoll Farm (3 miles directly inland from that shore) there is a prodigious pile of huge stones close by a great rock, having an entry through two half moons; next appears an entry by porch." The entrance was too full of stones and earth to admit a man but a boy who was able to do so reported that there were several passages off the large room into which he entered and that he thought that these led to different chambers. The ruin is called "Ty-tal-vine-na-druinich" OSA 1795.

NC 065 279. At the foot of a cliff, a drystone lined "cave", at very foot of a rock-pile, has its entrance extended and partly concealed by a ruinous circular enclosure, forming a 2m passage covered by a large slab. The enclosure measures 6m in diameter, within a 2m thick wall of large stones. There is a further wall across entrance to enclosure. In the roof of the "cave" there is a vent upwards through rock-pile, with below it, what may be a simple hearth. The cave measures c4m by 3m oval, and has appearance of having been a dwelling. E W MacKie 1967.

At NC 0660 2800 is a natural chamber in rocks, entrance to which has been restricted by a dry-stone walled lintelled passage 2m long. The chamber itself measures 3m x 2m x 1.5m high and has one other smaller cavity branching off from rear. There is no trace of hearth seen by Welsh. The entrance has been deliberately built to conceal chamber. The "foreworks" consist of poorly preserved stone-walled enclosure c10m diameter from which another even less well-preserved wall runs off to W. Within this enclosure are the fragmentary remains of what may have been a shieling or similar structure. A later wall, now ruined, joins NE arc of enclosure. The date of the structure is conjectural but probably late medieval or later. Visited by OS (J M) 6 August 1974.

Site recorded by T.C.Welsh as an enclosure associated with a cave, in 1971.See assoc. docs. File for SMR NH80NE0045.

J Aitken : 22/02/01.