From Roy's Military Survey to Google Earth?
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A crop-mark identified on the Google Maps system by Mr Paul Robertson of Irvine may represent the remains of a farmstead depicted on Roy's Military Survey of Scotland. Roy's Survey, undertaken in the period between 1747 and 1755, took place in the immediate aftermath of the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745-1746, when the Hanoverian military commanders in Scotland found themselves 'greatly embarrassed for want of a proper Survey of the Country'. Roy depicted a settlement called "Neggarshill" to the SE of the main body of the designed landscape surrounding Eglinton Castle, in a cut-off corner of the roughly rectilinear layout of this section of formal planting. It lies at the southern end of a linear plantation that runs roughly SW-NE, with the plantation passing to the western side of a place called Littlestone.
Extract from Roy's Military Survey showing Neggarshill, Copyright the British Library Boad
By the 1st edition, the designed landscape appears to have been extended to the east, incorporating Littlestone, but the Hill Plantation remains in the same position as was shown on Roy. Neggarshill no longer appeared on the 1st edition, but the place-name appears to survive in the modern Knadgerhill Cemetery, which lies next to the location of the crop-mark. While the crop-mark identified by Mr Robertson appears to be in the same approximate position as the settlement shown on Roy, in the absence of excavation it is not possible to be certain that these represent surviving sub-surface elements of Neggarshill, though it does appear to be a strong possibility.
Extract from 1st edition Ordnance Survey map showing former site of Neggarshill