After Sunday's 'adventure' I realised that our walk had passed very close to one of the Golspie area's hut circles - and it was easy to find it on a satellite view. It's marked here as
SC,
B being the burn pictured in the previous post.
So, in this morning's beautiful spring weather, I set off up Adder Track - named for the adder we'd seen twice just beyond this gate last summer - to find the circle which was...,
....once I was looking for it, staring me in the face.
The circle is covered in dead bracken at this time of year but it's clearly visible in this picture with the two gorse bushes on its far side. The circular wall is 1.5m thick and the internal diameter about 10m, making the hut's total diameter about 13m. Considering it may be two to three millennia old, it's in very good condition.
One thing that's remarkable about these iron-age houses is that their builders made no attempt to conceal them, preferring to choose a site with a good view. It would, therefore, have been visible from miles away. This suggests that, at the time they were built, the world was an unusually peaceful place.
Not only did the dwelling have superb views, it also had clean running water not 20m from its front door and, in the hillside behind it, plenty of space for fields.
As I was leaving, the site's present owner appeared, hanging around long enough to make sure I had gone.
I have written about our previous visit to the site here.
Hi Jon - that's very interesting about the stone huts. Looked like another lovely day "oop north"!
ReplyDeleteMany years ago we had some family holiday in North Wales, on the Llŷn Peninsula and sometimes walked to see the very old hill forts on Tre’r Ceiri (https://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/2888/trer-ceiri). So hard to imagine people living in those places, and the place from your photos, all those years ago, getting up every morning, doing the same basic things as us, eating, drinking, sorting out food and going to bed and so on. Though perhaps not as comfortable as us!