This is the area, between the ridge that rises to the peak of Beinn Bhraggie and the Golspie-Loch Lundaidh track, where our search last Friday produced the first group of heath fragrant orchids. However, as so often happens, a search for one thing led to another discovery.
It is difficult to distinguish in the rough vegetation but the four metre long line of boulders in the foreground is the foundations of one end of a small building, the structure extending away towards the top left for some 9m. In the right-hand side there is good evidence of a gap in the foundation stones which....
....was the doorway of the building - Mrs MW is standing in it in this picture, which looks in the diametrically opposite direction.
At 36 square metres it's a small building but this is typical of rural buildings dating back to the late 18th and early 19th centuries. While there is no evidence for this, at this size it may well have been someone's home and, if it was, it's typical of our ancestors as they, like us, did favour a site with a good view. Locally this is particularly true of the much earlier hut circles which often commanded fine panoramas.
The red arrow on this satellite picture of the area points to the barely-visible outline of the building, which runs almost exactly north-south with the entrance, as one would expect, on the east side where it is protected from the prevailing westerly winds.
The structure is also marked on the local 1:25,000 OS map, as are other structures to its east - which gives me more to investigate when next we walk up that way.
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