A new report entitled Inchberry – a settlement, a farm, a steading and a family has just been posted to the NOSAS website. It describes the history of a farm and steading at Inchberry, on the south side of the Beauly Firth. What was remarkable about the work that went into the report was that serendipity provided most of the information, rather than systematic archival research. That serendipity was in turn a product of relationships built up over many years. How often a chance encounter or a chance remark opens a door into new understanding or knowledge. Let’s see how it happened with Inchberry….
Serendipity One
The Lovat Estate Office in Beauly (c. NOSAS)
Out of the blue, on 8th March 2021 the Director of the Lovat Highlands Estate, Iain Shepherd, emailed me to say that there were some interesting graffiti on the walls of a steading at Inchberry and would I like to see them. I had got to know Iain well in 2018 when I was able to work on the Lovat map archive, at that time housed in the Estate Office in the middle of Beauly. The Estate then generously funded the digital scanning of all the maps in the archive, which were subsequently uploaded to the National Library of Scotland website. A relationship was born, which we had both appreciated since.
Graffiti of HMS Hood (c. Lovat Highland Estates)Graffiti of a Spitfire (c. Lovat Highland Estates)Continue reading →
The Crannogs project has now been running for a couple of years. Starting as a desktop exercise, we have now progressed to some site investigation and have managed a couple of dives.
A second phase of desktop study is underway and a picture of potential crannog occurrence in Wester Ross, Lochaber and Badenoch is beginning to emerge. Wester Ross has been a real challenge to study, with literally thousands of lochs and lochans, liberally scattered with innumerable islands. Many of these will be natural and picking out those which may be man made is no easy task.
Loch Achilty crannog (HER MHG7791, Canmore 12472) being easily accessible, had already been snorkelled and this verified that it was an artificial island, so it was chosen as the first proper dive. Duncan Ross from the Nautical Archaeology Society joined me for two days diving in August and you can find his blog on the experience elsewhere on the website, so I will not go into too much detail. Travelling in the good ship “Haggis” of the Blackburn line, (a tiny rowing boat ably skippered by Dave Coombs) escorted by the canoes of James McComas and Steve North, we made landfall on the crannog, donned our dive gear and plunged in.
Surveying Loch Achility, August 2022.
We were able to find several substantial timbers embedded in the silt at the base of the stone mound, at a depth of only about two metres. What these are, is open to debate but some of them appear to go underneath the stones so are probably part of the original construction. There is certainly the potential to take a small sample for carbon dating and the NOSAS committee will need to decide whether the project is to go in this direction, or whether we continue to just observe and survey.
During lockdown, apart from eating too many pancakes, NASAC (Nautical Archaeology Society affiliated diving club) member Duncan Ross set himself a grand future task of visiting different kinds of underwater archaeological sites around Britain. This summer he managed to add a couple of unique Scottish sites to his gradually-expanding list.
After around two years of communication, in August 2022 I was invited to help out on a crannog investigation in the fairly anonymous Loch Achilty, just a little north of Inverness city. Assisting North of Scotland Archaeology Society (NOSAS) member Richard Guest and his intrepid team, I spent two days at a most-tranquil setting scuba diving, investigating, recording and taking photos and film of a site that could be anything from a couple of hundred years to a couple of thousand years old.
Richard Guest explores mysterious timber and rocks around the Loch Achilty crannog: Image: Duncan Ross
Crannogs are a fairly unchartered area in the field of archaeology, and most questions about their creation and the purpose of their locations within lochs remain unanswered and open to speculation. All that usually remains is an artificial island of stones piled on top of one another – artefacts and human traces are frustratingly rare, as are diagnostic patterns that could lead to a method of classification. The crannog centre at Loch Tay focuses on the iron age roundhouse model that was discovered there, but little proof exists that others were constructed and utilised in the same way. The depth of the Loch Achilty crannog, previously unrecorded, is an ultra-accessible 2.5 metres. Needless to say, dive times were extremely long for Richard and myself.
Richard Guest and Duncan Ross prepare to place garden canes around the crannog to aid with measurements. Image: Elizabeth BlackburnContinue reading →
This is the Kebbuck Stone (see Canmore), a relief-carved cross slab dated to the 8th or 9th century, which today sits in the back garden of a cottage near Ardersier.
Location of the Kebbuck Stone in Nairnshire
It’s usually overlooked in the corpus of early medieval (“Pictish”) stone sculpture because the carvings have almost completely worn away and the surface of the stone is overgrown with lichen.
It was badly eroded even in 1893, when antiquarian George Bain wrote in his History of Nairnshire:
“The slab is very much wasted from the effects of weathering and ill-usage, but the faint outline of a Celtic cross can still be traced upon one side of it. It is a cross of the earliest form—incised and undecorated—and it would have made a most interesting memorial of early Christian times had it been better preserved.
Kebbuck Stone in evening sunlight, by Ian R. Maxwell (Geograph)
I don’t like the A96. It’s a very busy road and the archaeology is not particularly exciting; crop marks and just the occasional cairn. But here I was driving along from Inverness to Castle Stuart to meet the people from ScAPE, beginning their new recording project along the northeast coast. The plan was to walk from Castle Stuart round towards Ardersier, with expectations of good company and a nice day out with a little bit of archaeology.
Aerial photo of the tide mill near Castle Stuart.
We walked past the old church and motte of Castle Stuart to the outfall of the Rough Burn where it flows into the Moray Firth. It is a cliché to say it felt like we were stepping back in time, but looking out across to the Black Isle we could have been in a medieval landscape. Salt marsh, an occasional seabird and nothing else. Apart from, of course, a large bank across the edge of the salt marsh. Not just any bank but one belonging to a tide mill (HER MHG36425).
So, let’s go back to the scene…… salt marshes, a substantial burn, an old church, motte and later castle. Obviously, there must be a mill somewhere as part of this old settlement. Tide mills don’t immediately come to mind in the Highlands, however if you have read Marion’s blog on Petty parish you would be expecting it. They work on the same basic principle as any mill. A head of water drives a wheel, which turns the mill stones and grinds the corn. A tide mill uses the sea water as its water source, as the tide comes in it fills the area behind the bank and once the tide turns, the water is kept behind the bank by the bank and a sluice gate until it is needed. The site was duly recorded and on we went to a small wooden jetty, in disrepair but possibly not very old. Next, we found a boat…..or rather the remains of a boat barely visible in the silt but definitely there. Then out to the edge of the bay where the stones of a fish trap were being revealed by the outgoing tide.
I have long been fascinated by crannogs. These are articial island dwellings such as the one in Loch Achilty, pictured above (see Canmore). I remember back in the 80’s tiptoeing across a partly submerged causeway to visit one in a Shetland lochan. Then, later, visiting the reconstruction in Loch Tay and seeing a TV programme about it. Later still, whilst on a Nautical Archaeology Society training course I met one of the divers who had been on the Loch Tay project and heard first hand what it was like to make such amazing discoveries.
About 10 years ago, my late wife Jonie and I decided to try and walk out to the Redcastle crannog in the Beauly Firth (see Canmore). About twenty squelchy steps was enough to convince us that this was a BAD IDEA and we retreated to solid land. And oh! The smell! So the next expedition was by boat at high tide and we passed over Phopachy crannog (see Canmore), which we could see on the sounder but could make nothing out through the water. Another trip at a lower state of tide, we could see the crannog but the water around it was too shallow to approach in the boat. We didn’t try again.
What we did do was to dive around another crannog, the one in Loch Brora (see Canmore). The water was so peaty we saw literally nothing. We knew we had reached the bottom when we felt it beneath us. I put my hand in front of my mask but couldn’t see it, even with a powerful torch. I think I could feel some square timber but it might have been a modern fence post caught in weed.
More recently I became aware, through both diving and archaeology sources, of discoveries of Neolithic pottery found underwater around crannogs in the western isles (see Current Archaeology article). This exploded the received wisdom that crannogs were of iron age to post medieval date. Then in 2021 NOSAS were lucky enough to have a “Zoom” lecture about crannogs, by Michael Stratigos from the University of York, which is available on You Tube (below). This is when the idea for a NOSAS crannogs project was born.
a Powerpoint/pdf slideset accompanies this blogpost, providing a preliminary photo-documentation of the paths, with background history.
The networks of stalkers’ paths created by the Highland sporting estates from their advent in the earlier 19th century and into the 20th century have received remarkably little attention from historians or archaeologists. Yet they transformed access into glens and hills where formerly no made roads or ways had existed, and left persistent marks on the landscape. A recent NOSAS Report (2021) summarises this ‘stalkerpath phenomenon’ and presents the findings of a map, satellite imagery, and field study of a large swathe of the Western Highlands between Glen Cannich and Glen Carron. This study is being presented as a NOSAS Talk in March 2022.
In August 2021, a NOSAS field trip visited Glencarron Lodge to explore a pair of “stalkerpaths”. This novel and simplified term, which I have coined, distinguishes paths made for sporting estate purposes from traditional worn hill paths, and from tracks made for more general use (the NOSAS Report explains the thinking behind its adoption). This pair was chosen primarily for convenience of access, as the better-preserved cases now tend to be rather remote or difficult to embark upon. They are excellent if delicate examples of the classic ‘zig-zag’ design, and have a fascinating history, but unfortunately they display almost none of the typical artefacts.
Glencarron Lodge stalkerpaths locus
The paths ascend the steep, smooth north side of Glen Carron above the Lodge, and are visible as faint zig-zag traces from the A890, especially in low-angle light or thin snow. They have long been abandoned and, unusually for paths close to base, bear no trace of mechanised improvement or vehicular use. They ascend from 150m asl to terminate as the slope eases at ~500m asl, but well short of the broad 550m ridge labelled Coille Bhàn. They share a brief common start, with each branch only half a kilometre long (crow-flight up the hill).
Both paths are marked on OS 1:25000 maps, if not quite to their full extents, but only the western path is shown on the 1:50000. The original start from the Lodge is blocked by a treebelt. The displaced start shown by OS is now also barred, by rhododendron jungle. The path therefore has to be located by crossing footslopes from the lay-by on the main road west of the Lodge. It is reasonably visible near the treebelt, but the bifurcation is lost in thick bracken; even in winter, it is a jink-back that is hard to identify.
The present disuse (both for sporting purposes and by walkers) is a result of vicissitudes of estate history, which must first be addressed.
The moated homestead in Achnasoul Wood (NGR NH 48808 51821 Canmore ID: 274702 Highland Council (HC) HER MHG29192) 4kms west of Muir of Ord was visited by NOSAS members on a winter walk in February 2020 just before “lockdown”. The visit renewed my interest in the medieval period in this area and I began some research into the two homesteads of Davids Fort and Achnasoul with the intention of producing a blog for the NOSAS website. It wasn’t long before I realized what a complex topic I had taken on so I decided to split it into two; the first part, on Davids Fort, appeared on the NOSAS website in May 2020, this piece, focusing on Achnasoul, is part two.
The eastern half of the site showing the ditch and double banks with the mound on the right – looking SE
The Achnasoul site is a ringed earthwork with a central mound which was originally interpreted as a “moated homestead” but recently confirmed (on Canmore) as a motte and bailey. It is remarkably well preserved and has been one of my favourite local sites for many years. NOSAS carried out a planetable survey on a cold, wintery day in 2005 (report on NOSAS website at: www.nosas.co.uk/siterecords.asp.) The site remains something of a mystery and seems out of place; clearly it is fortified as it has substantial double banks enclosing a ditch but yet it is situated in low lying ground with higher knolls surrounding it – not a particularly defendable position!
In 2017 the site was scheduled by Historic Environment Scotland (HES) – SM13629. The description in the scheduling document says:
The monument is a large earthwork enclosure comprising a ditch and two concentric banks which enclose a sub-circular area measuring around 43m northwest-southeast by 39m northeast-southwest within which is a raised mound. The ditch defining the enclosure measures 4m to 5m in width and 1.5m in depth and is broken by two causeways on the northwest and southeast. The outer bank of the ditch is complete and varies in height, reaching a maximum of 2m… Internally, the raised mound lies in the northern part of the enclosed area and is c25m diameter at its base, reaching a maximum height of 2m. The summit is encircled by a fragmentary bank, which encloses an area of around 11m diameter.
The size and form of the visible remains… represents a rare survival of a moated homestead of medieval date.
A processed image of the Achnasoul site from a lidar survey (contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licinse v3.0)
In 2004, I was looking over my garden wall into Rosemarkie’s ancient graveyard and noticed gravediggers preparing a burial plot. Pictish sculpture has been discovered for over two centuries in the graveyard so I leapt over my wall and was told that it was an old family plot and a recently deceased woman was about to join her long-departed husband.
I asked if any pieces of stone had been recovered from the burial plot and I was pointed in the direction of a piece of dressed stone holding down the edge of the tarpaulin. After cleaning off the dirt, I noticed incised lines appearing on one side of the stone. It turned out to be a fragment of a Pictish grave marker dating to the 8th or 9th century. Carved on a finely dressed face was a quadrant of an incised ringed cross with the connecting ring and part of the shaft and one of the cross arms.
I have been interested in Pictish sculpture for many years and I co-authored ‘The Sculptured Stones of Caithness’ (Pinkfoot Press 1998). During my time living in Caithness, I had travelled the county examining old walls and clearance cairns near early chapel sites in the hope of discovering reused pieces of sculpture without success. I was therefore seriously chuffed to have recovered a piece of Pictish sculpture in Rosemarkie graveyard, next door to my garden! This carved stone is now on display in Groam House Museum (GHM) (https://her.highland.gov.uk/Monument/MHG38857).
The museum is famous for its unique and rich collection of Pictish sculpture and a visit to the museum is always inspiring with the magnificent Rosemarkie cross slab taking pride of place. There are also many other pieces of sculpture on display including parts of an altar or a shrine, emphasising the importance of Rosemarkie as a major monastic settlement in early medieval times (https://her.highland.gov.uk/Monument/MHG25214).
Some of the carved stones were discovered while repairing the medieval church in 1735 when “stone coffins of rude workmanship…” were revealed “…in a vault under an ancient steeple”1, and others were found in the surrounding graveyard over the last two centuries. A number of other fragments of sculpture have been found more recently in local garden rockeries in Rosemarkie and Fortrose! The medieval church was demolished in 1821 and replaced by the current church.
Muir of Ord Golf Club may be unique in having a green on top of a scheduled ancient monument. Castle Hill, the 13th green, is an artificially modified mound, standing at the north end of a ridge, proud of the surrounding flat ground. Its perimeter is delimited by a raised bank inside of which is a circular ditch, with two gaps at NW and SE. This bank and ditch enclose an oval flat area approximately 28 m by 21 m. The ridge probably represents an alluvial glacial moraine before the end of it was subsequently modified.
There has been considerable discussion and debate in the archaeological literature over the last 350 years as to the nature of this feature, when it was created, and for what purpose. However, whatever its nature, it is special, recognised as such by being included in the list of ancient monuments in Section 12 of the Ancient Monuments Consolidation and Amendments Act 1913. This important act of scheduling was reported to the Right Honourable Lord Lovat in a registered letter dated 11th April 1957. In the scheduling documentation[1] it was called Castle Hill Fort or Henge. Scheduling is the process that “identifies, designates and provides statutory protection for monuments and archaeological sites of national importance”, with damage to a scheduled site potentially incurring criminal charges. This became relevant in the early 1980’s, see later.
The first historical mention of this prominent feature was towards the end of the 17th century in a massive volume of archaeological recording, the Monumenta Britannica, written by probably Britain’s first archaeologist, John Aubrey (Aubrey, 1665-93). In it, Aubrey records part of a letter he received in 1692 from a Dr James Garden, Professor of Theology in the King’s College at Aberdeen. Aubrey had written to many local dignitaries and antiquarians throughout Northern Britain asking for information about stone monuments. He was delighted to receive this full response from Dr Garden in which the latter refers to a sacred grove thus: “I … have gotten information of two groves yet standing which are reputed sacred. One of them (which stands near to a place called Taradale in the parish of Killernen and shire of Nairn) is enclosed with a trench or dry ditch having two entries to it where the ditch is filled up or rather the ground has never been broken: all that live near it hold it as sacred, and will not cut so much as a rod out of it: my informer adds that, hard by, there is a cornfield where he conjectures there has been one of the Monuments, because in it there are several big stones such as those Monuments use to consist of, fallen down and out of order.” Taradale, now Tarradale, is the name given to the settlement that later came to be called Muir of Ord once the railway arrived in 1862. Garden’s description of the “sacred grove” fits nicely with the structure now called Castle Hill. Also note the description of standing stones in the vicinity, which we will come on to later.
NOSAS Archaeology Blog 