Monument record MHG6786 - Carn Biorach

NJ03NW 2 012 390.

(NJ 012 390) Cairns (NR)
OS 6"map, Morayshire, 2nd ed., (1900)

Field clearance, part of a complex cultivation, probably based on the mattock or hoe, judging by the size of the plots, and including the apparent remains of a hut.
The possible hut is outlined by a ring of stones 10' in diameter, adjoining a flattened plot 24' in diameter partly delineated by stony rickles. Traces of an oblong enclosure 15' by 10' marked by set stones are also noted, as is a length of possible consumption dyke dividing a peat moss, through which the tops of stone heaps show, from a stony hillside.
Graham also notes eight plots of cleared ground defined by rickles and contrasting with the uncleared ground, but he sites only one of them. It lies in the area NJ 014 388 adjoining the road at Ailtendow and is about 1/5 acre in extent, separated from the uncleared hillside well defined rickle.
Typical utilisation of outcrop for field clearance occurs in an effort to economise on cultivable ground.
Graham saw the site under ideal conditions, heather burning having reached a heat sufficient to burn off some of the overlying peat.
A Graham 1959.

Not cairns, but a field system on a SW slope, comprising stone clearance heaps. lynchets and an occasional field wall. Cultivation plots vary between about 30.0m by about 20.0m and about 20.0m by about 15.0m. The E edge of the system is bounded by traces of a stone wall, possibly the consumption dyke noted by Graham. Graham's possible 10 ft hut circle was not located, but his oblong "structure" is at NJ 0109 3908. It is a sub-rectangular area about 3.7m by about 2.8m bordered by a band of stones about 1.2m wide, with a linear clearance heap extending SE from the SE side. It is uncertain whether the remains are of a walled structure.
Visited by OS (A A) 1 March 1971.