Monument record MHG31988 - Boundary Dyke - Badan

Linear Boundary Dyke, NC 85476 12876 to NC 85923 12910.
An enhanced stone and turf bank, 1m wide and 0.6m high, and drainage ditch with flowing water on its NE side, originating from part of the natural SW bank of what, lower down, becomes a burn on the hillside to the N of the existing access track. It trends obliquely uphill on a bearing of 313 degrees to a high-angled bend at 285418 912958 in very boggy ground, turning NE to a slight bend at 285459 912987, and onto another at 285505 913004. It continues E over the broad crest of a ridge, with a shallow, damp ditch associated with the bank on its N, uphill side to 285573 913015, where it is 2m wide and 0.3m high on freshly burned heather-covered, gently SE-sloping terrain, and it is breached by an unmade Argo-cat track 3m to the W (see Plate 31). It then trends downhill 099 degrees to the W bank of Badan Burn at 285660 913008, adjacent to an old rowan tree standing at the side of the burn. This feature maybe a head dyke/drainage system associated with the Pre-Clearance township of Badan below, and has not been subject to any 19th Century enhancement at this location.

It recommences on the E bank of Badan Burn, adjacent to the last point, at the severe break of slope at the top of the deeply incised burn gully, and is very prominent as it rises up the steep W-sloping hillside to a slight bend at 285726 913023. It bends slightly again at 285744 913021, to trend parallel to the hillside contours in a SE direction to 285771 913007, and on to 285843 912955, where the bank is joined obliquely from below by a reed-covered, similar-sized bank, trending 143 degrees, more steeply downhill, but still across the slope.

From here the original, broad, low, peat turf bank is 1m wide and 0.3m high, with an associated broad, shallow, 1m wide and 0.2m deep, boggy ditch on its NE, uphill side. It trends 134 degrees obliquely across the crest of a broad S-dipping ridge to 285923 912910, and then on towards 116 degrees, obliquely down across the valley-side on the N side of Allt Smeòrail. <1>