Monument record MHG34322 - BIALLIDBEG

Created automatically by NMRS Register Utility
User: Admin, Date: Wed 13 Oct 2004
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NN69NE 38 6929 9708

The core of this township is situated on a gravel terrace above the N bank of the River Spey, below the modern A86 Laggan-Newtonmore road. It comprises at least eighteen buildings, a kiln-barn, four possible limekilns, and several enclosures. Around these structures are areas of cleared ground, with patches of rig cultivation surviving to the NE.
Most of the buildings are grouped together in a cluster centred at NN 6929 9708, although there are two outliers about 200m to the SW at NN6910 9695 (KING95 551-2), and another two about 550m to the NE at NN6963 9757 (KING95 584). The buildings are all rectangular in plan and some have rounded corners. They have rubble walls 0.7m to 0.9m thick, which have suffered considerable robbing, although some still stand up to 0.5m high. All but five of the buildings measure internally between 8m and 13m in length and between 2.6m and 3.7m in breadth; four buildings are smaller than this and only one is larger (KING95 553, which measures internally 16.1m by 2.5m). Three buildings (KING95 552, 555, 584) have outshots, three (KING95 553, 555, 560) are divided into two compartments and one (KING95 558) has three compartments. The SW compartment of one building (KING95 553) has opposed entrances and it may have served as a barn; there may also have been opposed entrances in another building (KING95 556). Amongst the main cluster of buildings there are two large subrectangular enclosures and fragmentary remains of several others, as well as up to seven subrectangular hollows, which may have been middens. A track from this cluster leads N to join a metalled (though grassed-over) trackway (KING95 586) that runs from NW to SE past the site, parallel to and just below the modern road.
The kiln-barn (KING95 550) is set apart from the other structures, next to the trackway at NN6912 9705 . It has a bowl measuring 2.1m in diameter and 0.4m deep within a stone-faced bank. It opens E, into the barn, which measures 4.5m by 3.9m over walls reduced to spread stony banks. Immediately to the S there is an oval pit measuring 3.4m by 2.7m and 0.6m in depth. The other kilns (KING95 565, 567, 570, 571) are set into the face of the terrace below the main settlement, spaced up to 60m apart. They are rubble built with flattened front faces and bowls about 2m across, although one (KING95 567) has a much larger bowl, measuring 3.6m by 2.2m. It is possible that these kilns were for burning lime, rather than drying grain.
To the NW and NE of the main cluster of buildings there are two flat terraces of cleared ground, scattered with clearance heaps and subdivided by lengths of stony bank (KING95 572, 574). Farther to the NE there are several other small groups of clearance heaps and three small areas of rig cultivation, the ridges being 4m to 5.5m across, flat topped and straight (KING95 577, 579, 581, 585). Also in this area there are four hut-circles and three groups of small cairns, the latter probably the result of prehistoric rather than post-medieval agriculture; these are described separately (NN69NE 12, 39, 40 and 42).
This township is depicted on two plans of the Estate of Cluny, made respectively in 1756 (surveyor unknown; map held by Cluny Estate, photographic copy in the NMRS) and in 1770 (by William Tennoch, SRO RHP 3489), which both name it 'Ballaid Vaunie' (possibly a misspelling of 'Uaine'), within the farm of 'Ballaidbeg'. The maps depict a group of buildings in the position of the settlement described here, and another group to the NW (see NN69NE 48). The trackway noted above (KING95 586) is also depicted and annotated 'Country road to Pitmain'. In addition, the maps also show extensive arable ground to the NE of the settlements, encompassing the whole area between the Spey and the lower limit of the modern woodland to the NW of the current road, including all the areas of rig and field clearance described above. The 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Inverness-shire 1872, sheet ci) depicts only two enclosures at this site.
(KING95 550-72, 574, 577, 579, 581, 584-6)
Visited by RCAHMS (SDB) 24 October 1995