Monument record MHG42664 - ALLT GORTAN, BALLACHROAN

Created automatically by NMRS Register Utility
User: Admin, Date: Wed 13 Oct 2004
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NH70SW 29.00 7275 0069

NH70SW 29.01 NH 7300 0078 Building (KING95 397)

This township comprises three farmsteads, an isolated building (NH70SW 29.01), a kiln-barn, a limekiln, several enclosures, three patches of rig and a fragmentary head-dyke. The buildings are distributed mainly in three farmsteads around the fringes of the rigged or cultivated ground, and there is an outlying building to the E (KING95 397, NH 7300 0078). One of the farmsteads lies immediately W of a large sheep-fank (NH 7257 0082), and the other two to the SE (NH7298 0056) and S (NH 7257 0050) respectively.
The farmstead immediately W of the sheep-fank comprises three buildings and several fragmentary enclosures. The three buildings are much reduced and robbed, but one building in particular appears to be a byre-dwelling, with three compartments in its final appearance. This building is 19m long and tapers in breadth from 7.2m on the W to 6.2m on the E over stony banks spread to about 1.5m in thickness (KING95 378). The point at which the building begins to taper coincides with the division between the middle and E compartment, hinting, perhaps, at a phase when the building was shorter. There is an entrance near the W end of the S side opening into a hollowed-out area or byre. A rise divides the byre from a central living area, also hollowed-out, and there is with a small internal room, barely 2m across, partitioned off at the W end. The other two buildings are smaller, at 10.9m and 13.8m in length respectively by about 4.7m in breadth over low stony banks (KING95 379-80).
The farmstead to the SW of the rig comprises a building, a kiln-barn and an enclosure. The building has two compartments of unequal size and measures 9.8m from NNW to SSE by 3.9m transversely within faced-rubble footings 0.75m thick (KING95 383). The kiln-barn comprises a kiln, which has been robbed of stone on the E and is much reduced, and a barn on the NE. The kiln measures 2.1m in diameter by 0.5m in depth within rubble walls spread to 1.5m in thickness, and the barn 3m in length by 2.5m in breadth with an entrance on the SE (KING95 382).
The farmstead to the SE comprises two buildings, a limekiln, a yard, and an enclosure. The buildings, which are situated in the low-lying ground on either bank of the Allt Gorton, where it emerges from a gully, measure 9.6m and 15.5m in length by 4.4m and 5.8m in breadth respectively over low stony banks up to 1.3m in thickness (KING95 395-6). The kiln which is set into the face of a terrace to the W, has the appearance of a pit with an opening to the E, and measures 4.5m in diameter by 0.8m in depth. A subrectangular yard, defined by a bank, encloses a terrace which is levelled into the slope immediately W of the kiln; it measures 9m from E to W by 7m transversely (KING95 394).
The main expanse of rig extends over about 6ha. Where best-preserved the rigs are about 3m to 4m wide, but they have been much reduced by recent cultivation. There are linear clearance heaps in some of the furrows, and lynchets are visible at the E extremity of the area (KING95 393). A head-dyke may be traced along the N edge of the area of rig and also in the bottom of the gully of the Allt Gortan on the W side of the burn. Two smaller furlongs of rig, each less than 1ha in extent, lie to the SW (KING95 392) and NE respectively, the latter on the other side of the Allt Gortan from the rest of the settlement (NH 7295 0071).
(KING95 378-80, 382-6, 398)
Visited by RCAHMS (PJD) 7 November 1995