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MHG26659 - Earthwork - Rheindown Wood

Summary

Earthwork and other features at Rheindown Wood

Type and Period (2)

Protected Status

Full Description

The Inverness Field Club, led by Donald Coghill, surveyed a number of sites in the Aird area between 1987 and 1989. Rheindown Wood.

Coming up from rough ground and from an easterly direction, and crossing below an electricity line almost at right angles, is a flat topped linear earthwork 8 yards wide. It has a small ditch at the upper and south side. On the north side the ditch is very substantial, 4 yards wide at the bottom, and appears similar to a sunken road. It is then in a fir wood, having turned uphill slightly, and keeping close to the edge of a steep bank above a burn. There is now a rampart at the side of this fosse next the burn. Near where this rampart starts there appear to be faint traces of earth works of indefinite shape, one of which could be part of a flat topped circular mound. There is another circular mound a few yards to the S.S.E., opposite a substantial rampart which has a base maw 5 yards wide, and which runs in a southerly direction and stops a little distance short of a timber loading stance at a road junction. This rampart contains very much more material than could have come from the upcast of the small ditch at its east side. The 8 yard wide rampart can be traced at the other side of a tarred road and it continues in tae same westerly direction. Near the top of the fir wood it appears to have narrowed to a width of 5 yards before all trace is lost. Also 65 yards up from this road there are 4 mounds a few yards to the south of this linear feature. The nearest one is the largest and very prominent. There appears to be another similar wound or cairn a short distance further up. It is mentioned in the Wardlaw Manuscript that scouts of the Clan MacKenzie were observed above Rheindown about 1577. This army was probably camped in the area during this disturbed period. The rampart running north to south with the 5 yard base and perhaps the one at the edge of the bank above the burn have been reused. At 0S 513476 a shallow flat bottomed ditch 6 feet wide runs from the burn for a few yards to meet tire road, and continues on the other side in a S.W. direction to meet traces of minor earthworks of indefinite shape near the fir wood boundary. Near the road and 12 yards south of the ditch, there is a crag and tail mound 5 yards
in diameter which may be an outlier of the aforementioned cairnfield further south. <1>

Sources/Archives (1)

Map

Location

Grid reference	Centred NH 5150 4760 (30m by 30m) (2 map features)
Map sheet	NH54NW
Geographical Area	ROSS AND CROMARTY
Civil Parish	URRAY

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