We at last returned to Loch Lunndaidh today, on a beautiful morning, to find two swans looking very much 'at home' on the loch.
We were hoping to find and explore three sites, and were successful in finding them all. Site 1 is a hut circle, probably Iron Age, and....
....was easily found by the side of the track - it's the platform to the right of this picture, covered in dead bracken. The people who built it evidently enjoyed a fine view.
There were several structures at site 2, some quite difficult to distinguish. This picture shows, in the foreground, what may be quite a large rectangular building, one of those probably abandoned when the township was cleared in about 1820. It's surrounded by bracken, a sure sign that the land was worked.
The main site of the Lunndaidh settlement, 3, is within the circled red area at the northwest end of the loch. Again, it's easily distinguished because of the bracken growing in what were the fields.
This satellite view shows most of the structures. We didn't have time to look at them all but the one we did explore is marked with an arrow. It's surrounded by an irregular circular wall....
....visible in this picture. It extends from Mrs MW right across the width of the picture and may have been an enclosure for animals or it may have been to keep animals out of a vegetable garden.
The rectangular structure at the north side of the enclosure is visible in this picture, and was probably a dwelling house. There's also a smaller rectangular structure, not so easily seen in the satellite photo, at the south side of the enclosure, perhaps a storage building or a 'granny flat'.
It's very good to find the settlement so well preserved. It'll provide me with plenty to explore, something I'll need to get cracking on before the bracken starts to shoot.
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