Building record MAB6436 - BURNKIRK, STONY HILL

Remains of a small croft farmstead, depicted on the OS 1st edition map as a small square building with a rectangular enclosure to the southwest, with a narrow rectangular range running along and attached to the inside of the southeast wall.

Remains of a small croft farmstead, depicted on the OS 1st edition map as a small square building with a rectangular enclosure to the southwest, with a narrow rectangular range running along and attached to the inside of the southeast wall. A field enclosure is shown to the southeast, with a well shown at the southeast boundary and a small pond or wet ground shown to the northwest edge of the enclosure. A curving field dyke is depicted to the north and west of the field enclosure. The building is shown as a ruin on the 1888 OS 2nd edition map, while the enclosures and range are not depicted, with the field dyke still shown to the north and west, though fragmented towards the southwest terminus. The features are no longer shown on the current edition OS map. The site lies within a large area of prehistoric field system and hut circle remains (NJ25SW0004). A walkover survey carried out by West Coast Archaeological Services in October 2020, covering an area of a proposed woodland planting and regeneration scheme (NJ25SW0049), recorded that the farmstead buildings survived only as very degraded foundations of structures within the enclosure. The rectangular enclosure, located on a slight knoll, measured 48 m long southwest to northeast by 20 m wide internally, with stone walls spread from 1-1.4 m wide and standing to a maximum height of 0.4 m. A small rectangular building was located to the southwest outside the enclosure centred at NJ 24986 51216 (Site 9d). The sites' very degraded building remains were covered with long grasses and it was not possible to determine any features that may have indicated their original function. A fragmentary section of turf dyke of unknown function was recorded running northwest-southeast centred at NJ 25101 51215 (Site 9e). The curving field dyke recorded from NJ 25041 51485 to NJ 25050 51025 (Site 7), to the north and west of the enclosure, survived as very degraded stone footings with virtually no coursing remains visible in the rubble stone bank. It had been robbed at the northeast terminus. The well shown on the OS 1st edition map could not be identified during the walkover. An area of at least 14 degraded stone cairns centred at NJ 25165 51284 (Site 10), to the east of the Burnkirk field enclosure, may have been prehistoric in origin (see (NJ25SW0004) but have been added to with post medieval stone clearance, probably related to the Burnkirk farmstead.

WEST COAST ARCHAEOLOGICAL SERVICES, 2020, MOSS OF ROTHES WOODLAND PLANTING SCHEME, ROTHES ESTATE, MORAY: ARCHAEOLOGICAL DESK BASED ASSESSMENT AND WALKOVER SURVEY, DBA and Walkover (Bibliographic reference). SAB3448.

Record last edited

Apr 7 2026 12:11PM