Monument record MHG4560 - Palisaded enclosure, Sithean Mor Dail A' Chaoruinn

Access audit 92 - HAW 11/2003

NH60SE 2 6906 0042.
On Sithean Mor Dail a Chaoruinn (The Fairy Knoll of the Glen of the Rowan Trees), a steep-sided glacial knoll with a level oval summit, commanding extensive views over Glens Banchor and Badenoch, there is a palisaded enclosure.
It consists of two palisade trenches, 0.6m in width and 0.1m in depth, spaced from 5 to 9.0m apart, the inner encircling the summit and enclosing an area 38m NE-SW by 25m transversely; the outer lying between 1.0 to 2.5m below the summit and visible as a slight terrace. The entrance in the SW. is indicated by a gap, 3.0m in width, in both inner and outer palisade trenches. Another ill-defined gap in the inner trench in the NE is also probably original.
The enclosed area is featureless except for a small circular turf enclosure, 5.0m in diameter within a bank 1.0m in width and 0.1m in height, surrounded by a faint outer ditch. No entrance is visible. (Information from OS surveyor {A E W} 1:10000 revision 31 May 1967). This enclosure is known locally as 'Jimmy Blair's Garden' after an eccentric who grew vegetables in it at the turn of the century.
Visited by OS (A A) 2 October 1969.

A sample of carbonised wood obtained from part of the outer palisade trench exposed in a sheep 'scrape' at the SE. corner of the enclosure was identified as alder by Oxford University Botany Dept.
Information from OS Recorder (AC) 6 January 1971.

Two aerial photographs, RCAHMS, 1996.
See photographic library.
J Aitken : 14/03/02.