EHG6086 - Fieldwalking - Fields around Tarradale (Tarradale Archaeological Project)

Fieldwalking was undertaken by E Grant and members of NoSAS in fields around Tarradale house between 2008 and 2020. The Tarradale Archaeological Project started as a private initiative around 2008 and was incorporated as an approved NOSAS research project in 2011. The project aimed to investigate and record the surviving archaeological evidence of the multi-period archaeological landscape of the Tarradale area and to interpret the chronological development of settlement and resource utilisation in the study area. The study area comprised about 750 hectares of mainly agricultural land at the eastern end of the parish of Urray on the northern side of the inner Beauly Firth in Ross-shire. Historically the area was co-terminous with the old landholding unit of Tarradale estate and the ecclesiastical parish of Gilchrist or Tarradale, which was a separate parish until becoming amalgamated with the parish of Urray in the late 16th century. Lithic finds were made from as soon as fieldwalking commenced and more than 3300 lithics were found, the great majority being flakes, chunks or chips but there was clear evidence of the manufacture and use of a variety of lithic artefacts which can be dated typologically to Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age (with a small number of post-medieval gun flints). The great majority of lithic finds were made of flint but a significant proportion were of quartz or quartzite with a small number made of chert, as well as more exotic materials such as Rum bloodstone. The majority of lithic finds were less than 50 mm in any one direction and could be broadly assigned to the Mesolithic period, including flakes, flake tools, scrapers and cores. However, within the general mass of lithic finds, there were a significant number of identifiable Neolithic and Bronze Age artefacts. Generally the density of lithic finds was higher in the southern part of the study area with the density falling off northwards. In addition to lithic finds, spreads of marine molluscs were identified in the plough soil at the number of places and evidence was found of at least eight shell middens mainly spaced along the top of a degraded cliff (representing a former shoreline between two raised beaches) which is now a little distance inland due to later changes in sea level. There was a strong correlation between the area of denser lithic finds and the presence of shell middens identified from spreads of marine molluscs. Some of the middens appeared to be well scattered by ploughing but in several places auguring demonstrated the survival of layers of shells below the plough soil. Early and middle Bronze Age evidence was largely posited on the presence of identifiable Bronze Age lithic finds, including several barbed and tanged arrowheads as well as different types of scrapers and other tools. In 2014 the fieldwalking find of piece of beaker pottery near a barrow cemetery and the 2014 metal detecting find of a very well-preserved tinned copper alloy flat axe of Migdale type near the Neolithic chambered cairn brought the Early Bronze Age into focus. At least one other historic find of a beaker from the Tarradale estate (now in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London) also adds weight to the importance of the early Bronze Age in the area. A concentration of medieval pottery as well as large nails and a number of 13th century silver pennies were found that strongly suggested that the site of what may be the motte of Tarradale Castle lies on a raised beach immediately southeast of and on the same level as Tarradale house, with a steep slope immediately to the south (representing the drop to the next lowest abandoned shoreline) being utilised as a defensive feature. Fieldwalking in the fields to the south of Gilchrist early in 2015 found a number of sherds of medieval pottery including a concentration of such sherds in the field immediately to the south of Gilchrist east kettle hole and where aerial photographs show an approximately circular ditched enclosure that may be some kind of homestead site. It was considered likely that there are other smaller foci of medieval settlement within the study area that may be determined from finds of pottery through fieldwalking. Some of the current and abandoned farm sites may date from medieval times, although there was considerable reorganisation of the settlement patterns and agricultural landscape resulting from agricultural improvement that commenced in the late 18th Century. <1> <2> Subsequent fieldwork involved test-pitting, geophysical survey and excavation as part of the Heritage Lottery funded 'Tarradale Through Time Project'.