WoSAS Pin 66088
NS 4273 7788
The faint and indistinct ruins of a building are centred on NS 42733 77881, perched near the top of the steep south-western side of a stream valley, and located 230 metres N of the northern end of Black Wood. The external dimensions of the building are approximately 9.4 metres by 4.1 metres. Its long axis is oriented ESE-WNW. No exposed stone is visible; the walls of the building are evident only as low grass-covered ridges.
Traces of a dividing cross-wall are visible; the largest room was located at the western end of the building, and measures 5.5 metres in length (this figure includes the width of the western wall of the building and of the cross-wall). The eastern end of the building may also have been sub-divided, creating a very narrow storage space at that end, but the faintness of the ruins made it impossible to establish this with any certainty.
The ruin is set only a few metres back from a steep slope, just to the NE, formed by one of several streams that feed into the Garshake Burn.
The building is located at the northern corner of a rectangular enclosure, which, like the building itself, has its long-axis oriented ESE-WNW. The enclosure measures about 85 metres (in that direction), by 45 metres. The outline of the enclosure is extremely faint on the ground, but its corners are at NS 42773 77881, NS 42706 77847, NS 42780 77816, and NS 42804 77840. The boundary makes a small detour at the southern corner, to exclude an area that is about 9m square.
Within this main enclosure are the remains of two smaller sub-enclosures, apparently connected to each other. They are far more obvious than the larger outer enclosure, and they are the most conspicuous feature of the site as a whole. The course of their walls can be seen as grassy ridges. The enclosures are both slightly irregular in shape, but the first, which is centred on NS 42766 77829, is about 20 metres square. The other, adjoining it, is centred on NS 42794 77837, and is slightly smaller, and almost rectangular.
Running along the outside of the eastern wall of the latter enclosure is what appears to have been a short track, leading NNE; it is noticeably deeper than the surrounding area. This probable track is located at the eastern corner of the outer enclosure, and it may have been the route by which livestock were led to and from the two smaller sub-enclosures.
The ruined building and its associated enclosures are not depicted on the first-edition OS map, nor on any subsequent OS maps. Roy's Military Survey was consulted, but no matching farmstead appears there: the nearest sites shown on Roy's map are "Spouts" (400 metres to the north, and depicted as a ruin on first-edition OS map), the still-extant Maryland (about 1km to the south-west), and "Breadfield" (shown as being located on the other side of the Garshake Burn).
The site was first picked out on Google Earth (only in its historical imagery from 2005 is the sun's angle of illumination sufficiently shallow to allow the ruined building and the fine details of the associated enclosures to be clearly visible). The nature of the remains was then confirmed by means of a site visit.
Information from D.A. Cameron, 11/04/11