Monument record MHG9806 - Kildonan Burn

NC92SW 38 914 221.
Enclosures and Hut Circles (NR) OS 6"map, (1963)

Up the west bank of the Kildonan Burn on Creag Druim nan Rath, is a large group of hut circles and small mounds. Six enclosures (A-F) are specified, two of which (B and C) are planned. At the south end of the group of hut circles, on the top of the bank above the burn and on the SE point of the hill, is a circular depression, 7ft internal diameter, lined with stones and 'filled with ruins'. An entrance seems to have been from the SE.
RCAHMS 1911, visited 1909

In addition to those noted by the RCAHM seven more hut circles were found. Associated with the huts are numerous clearance heaps and traces of old field enclosure banks.
Visited by OS (W D J) 3 June 1961

Hut 'C' is of the Kilphedir Hut V type, as may be hut 'K'. Using the Kilphedir excavation as an analogy the sequence of occupation would appear to be a settlement of 'simple' huts with field clearance heaps, about 500 BC, followed about 130 BC by the Kilphedir type II huts, with fields.
H Fairhurst and D B Taylor 1974

This is a settlement of twelve hut circles (A-L)including a newly recognised hut (L), on the gentle S and E flanks of a hill, in association with a field system. Of the published features at NC 91012213 and NC 91562202, the first is a rectangular footing, about 8.0m by 3.0m, of a bothy-type structure; the other an apparent segment of revetted platform which may be the E half remaining of a hut about 14.0m diameter overall but the presence of stone clearance in what would be the W half makes a field plot more realistic.
The majority of the huts are circular varying from 6.0m to 10.5m inside diameters; two huts, 'B' and 'K', are oval being 12.5 by 11.5 and 12.0 by 9.0m respectively, internally, the longer dimension in both cases on a NW-SE axis. Walls, in the main heather covered, are spread from 1.5-3.0m broad, roughly in ratio to hut sizes and stand at best, in huts 'B' and 'D' to 0.9m. Entrances are from the E or SE arcs and in huts 'C' and 'E' are clubbed; the latter hut would seem of the Kilphedir Hut II type rather than hut 'K' noted by the PSAS. Hut 'C', the best defined preserves a fairly extant inner wall facing of contiguous boulder slabs on edge; its entrance passage, stone-coarsing lined, is 6.0m in the E and 4.5m long in the opposing side, the latter somewhat obscured by debris; there are door jambs 2.5m out from the inside. In hut 'B' a break, 3.0m east of the entrance, in the wall opens into an outside sunk chamber rectangular in form, 6.0m ENE-WSW by 3.0m internally and standing, inside, to 1.0m high: About 1.5-2.0m outside the same hut concentric to the wall arc approaching the W side of the entrance, is an elongated mound 11.0m long, tapering from the N to the greatest dimension at the S where it is 6.0m wide and 1.0m high; a windbreak is suggested.
The field system is well illustrated by mounds of stone clearance, wasted banks and occasional lynchets. Cultivation plots, averaging
20.0 by 15.0m are discernible.
At NC 915220 are three or four circular depressions filled with stones, one of which is presumably that noted by the RCAHM. They appear to be natural sink-holes in the peat into which field stones have been dumped. Hut L surveyed at 1:10 560
Visited by OS (J M) 9 December 1976