EHG4424 - Walkover survey - Fassfern Estate, Locheil

A desk-based assessment and walkover survey were carried out by Wordsworth Archaeological Services in 2000 on the Fassfern Estate, Locheil. It was found that a majority of the survey areas were under forestry plantation and that some of these had seen several episodes of ploughing, planting and harvesting. As a result sonsiderable alterations had occurred to the local terrain making it difficult to identify surviving archaeological sites. This was compounded by the difficulty of accessing the areas because of dense unbrashed planting, windblow, rank often boggy vegetation in rides and other open areas. Given these constraints it was not possible to examine the whole 3000 hectares of the woodland. Instead the survey was targeted at known and predicted areas of archaeological interest. A total of four days were spent walking the identified areas of archaeological interest and areas of potential interest. The latter were selected as areas of unplanted ground, generally close to existing watercourses. However, the majority of open areas were either overgrown with rank vegetation or already ploughed or mounded. As a result only a few additional sites were identified from documentary and cartographic sources, the majority of these had already been damaged by forestry operations. <1>