A roundhouse has been excavated during fieldwork conducted by Headland Archaeology Ltd in advance of construction of a substation for the Clyde Windfarm, near Crawford in South Lanarkshire. Following the identification of a number of linear cut features, postholes and a possible hearth structure during evaluation trenching, the site was subject to full excavation in April and May this year. The bulk of the text for this news item is drawn from Headland's data structure report on this excavation.
The settlement occupied the edge of the steep bluff apparently formed by erosion of a river terrace by a former course of the Midlock Water. From the edge of this bluff, the ground surface sloped gently down to a boggy depression to the south, at the foot of a steep slope rising to The Dod. The highest point of the site was occupied by a roundhouse comprising a penannular ring-gully, a postring and a four-post doorway structure, with an ‘annexe’ formed by a smaller adjoining ring ditch to the east. A hearth was recognised in the north side of the interior of the roundhouse. A cluster of stakeholes immediately south of the roundhouse may also be related to its occupation.
Adjoining the south-east side of the ring-gully was another ring-gully, 8 m in internal diameter, which appears to have formed some sort of annexe to the roundhouse. This appears to have existed contemporaneously with the main structure, and to have been added to it rather than the other way round. Only one feature, a shallow pit, was located within the ‘annexe’
The roundhouse is comparable in size and layout to buildings associated with unenclosed platform settlements in the Southern Uplands, as at Lintshie Gutter. The post-ring undoubtedly supported a conical roof which would also have rested on a low outer wall. Whether the ring-gully contained the outer wall, as suggested for the structures described at Lintshie Gutter, or functioned as an eavesdrip gully outside the wall, is not entirely clear, although the latter seems most likely. Radiocarbon dates from Lintshie Gutter ranged from the late third millennium to the mid second millennium BC, and a similar Bronze Age date seems possible for the roundhouse at Whelphill. The structure at Whelphill is distinctive, however, in that it does not appear to form part of a wider grouping of buildings, and rather than occupying a platform cut into a hillside it is situated in a prominent location on the edge of the eroded river terrace. There is also little to suggest more than one phase of construction. This suggests that it may represent something other than ordinary domestic occupation. The ‘annexe’ ring gully is perhaps more likely to represent a fenced enclosure than another roofed building, in view of the lack of postholes in the interior. The darker, organic fill of this feature in comparison to the main structure perhaps indicates that it acted as a foundation for a wall or fence rather than an open ditch.
Immediately to the south of the roundhouse were two structures which were referred to as ‘long enclosures’ in the Headland data structure report. The date and function of these features are unknown, and they do not correspond obviously to any well-known sitetype. No finds were recovered from either of the long enclosures, but pottery from apit which appeared by its position to be related to one or other of them, would certainly be compatible with a Bronze Age date.