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MHG63071 - Mailers cottage, abandoned mailers settlement - Tarradale

Summary

Survey and limited excavation of a late 18th and early 19th c. mailers settlement; House No 3.

Type and Period (2)

Protected Status

Full Description

The post-medieval abandoned mailers’ settlement (cottagers who rented one of two acres of arable land along with a share of the common moorland) near Tarradale Mains Farm is the most recent historic site investigated by the wider 'Tarradale Through Time' project examining landscape history of Tarradale from the earliest occupation 6000 years ago to the early 1800s. The settlement lies in an area of rough grazing and regenerated native woodland to the north of Tarradale Mains Farm but is not recorded on any maps from the 1st Edition Ordnance Survey 1873 and onwards or in any archaeological records. The area is no longer in agricultural use and it was decided to make a record of the remains as they continue to disappear beneath the vegetation and tree cover. The principal aim of this sub-project of Tarradale Through Time was to survey and record the traces of building in uncultivated ground to the north of Tarradale Mains Farm.

Dr Kenneth Murchison, the owner of the Tarradale estate, appears to have done just that at a group of mailers' holdings described on the 1788 Aitken map as "improvements … in 19 separate fields possessed by 11 mailers lying just north of the Mains". The cluster of mailers houses is clearly delineated on the 1788 map but little survives above the surface today. This group of houses was somewhat unusual as it was fairly regularily laid out, paralleling what was the old main road at the time. This strongly suggests that it was a settlement planned by Kenneth Murchison for his poorest tenants who were allowed to take over and improve an area of heavy undulating land underlain by boulder clay.

The sites of six houses were identified, some of them with outbuildings. A limited amount of excavation was undertaken, principally on House No. 2. The trench was extended outside the house across a cobbled yard and into a stone and earthen bank which probably enclosed a kailyard. The investigations suggested that the houses were not built of stone all the way up with subsequent courses constucted from boulders held together with clay or the walls were mainly contructed of turf. Although our excavations were relatively limited, we were surprised at the lack of artefactual remains. There were only a few fragments of pottery, several pieces of cast iron representing the remains of cooking pots for hanging over an open fire, as well as a number of pieces of glass. The settlement had clearly been abandoned at some stage and it may be that the tenants took their few possessions with them, but even so, the dearth of rubbish that would normally been left behind suggests an impoverished material culture.

Why the cluster of mailers' houses was abandoned is not obvious from the archaeology but it does appear as if it was abandoned all at the same time, suggesting that the mailers, or possibly the landowner, felt it was no longer economically viable to continue cultivating the tiny plots on poor quality land. <1> <2>

House 3. The structure does not appear on the Aitken map. It was found below a dense cover of gorse and was revealed as a mound of soil and, apart from the NE corner, the stonework was not exposed. The structure is c. 15m east west by c. 4m and sits up c. 0.75m above the surrounding ground level. There is stonework all round the walls below the soil surface apart from two small areas on the south side, one at the east,and one at the west end. There are two hollows within the walls and the west hollow is at a slightly lower level than the hollow on the east end, suggesting there is a division within the structure. This building is likely to have two compartments, each with a doorway on the south side. There is a tree in the east compartment.

Lying c. 3.5m to the south of structure 3 and sitting on a mound is another building c. 8m north south by c. 2.5m. The whole mound is covered with stones but there appears to be an outer wall face on the south end and a possible wall edge on the west side. The east side has been disturbed but may have at least two, possibly three, entrances. There seems to be an internal division indicated by a change in slope. There are two slight hollows in each of the compartments. A broken cauldron was found below the top layer of stone. <1>

NGR adjusted based on site map (p.74.) <2>

Sources/Archives (2)

Map

Location

Grid reference	Centred NH 5542 4949 (24m by 31m) (2 map features)
Map sheet	NH54NE
Geographical Area	ROSS AND CROMARTY
Civil Parish	URRAY

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Related Investigations/Events (2)

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