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MHG63074 - Mailers cottage, abandoned mailers settlement - Tarradale

Summary

Survey and limited excavation of a late 18th and early 19th c. mailers settlement; House No 6.

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 6. This building is depicted on the Aitken map and has the name John Ferguson beside it. The structure lies at the easternmost end of the site. It appears to be c. 23m east west and c. 5m wide. There is a hollow atthe west end of the structure which may indicate a compartment. There is a very
large boulder on the southwest corner of the structure. Probing found the outshot depicted on the Aitken map. The structure was not exposed during the project as is covered in deep turf and the planning was informed by probing the ground and using the 1788 plan. Within the whole site, groups of young trees have been planted c. 10 years ago. One of these groups has been planted on the north edge of House 6. The house may have been considerably affected by the building of the nearby boundary wall, changes in the agricultural system to the south, and the tree planting. <1>

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

Sources/Archives (2)

Map

Location

Grid reference	Centred NH 5565 4949 (39m by 25m) (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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