Kirkton basement
The basement of Kirkton (etymol .: the church village; there are several places with this name), also called Kirkton Earthhouse , lies west of the coastal town of Golspie and northwest of the hamlet of Kirkton, which is on the North Sea side of the Scottish county of Sutherland . A recess in the grass between a field wall and a wood provides access to the well-preserved basement. It is one of 40 basements in Sutherland. In the case of the basement, a basic distinction is made between "rock-cut", "earth-cut", "stone built" and "mixed" basements.
Today's entrance has three steps, a second entrance, which has now collapsed, is possibly on the other side of the straight, roughly ten-meter-long brick corridor covered by slabs. Contrary to the predominant curved shape on the Scottish mainland ( e.g. Ardestie ; Carlungie ; Culsh and Tealing ) this basement is cruciform. This form is also unknown on the islands ( Hebrides and Orkney ). The longer corridor coming from the entrance is supplemented by two slightly offset corridors roughly in the middle at right angles. There are chambers at the ends of these two, much shorter cross arms.
A small ring of slate was found next to food waste , which is now in the Dunrobin Castle Museum. The basement was cleared in the 19th century.
Not far from the basement is a robbed cairn about 17 m in diameter with a centrally located stone box . The box without cap stones measures 1.2 m × 0.9 m.
See also
literature
- Anna Ritchie, Graham Ritchie : Scotland. To Oxford Archaeological Guide (= Oxford archaeological guides. ). Oxford University Press, Oxford 1998, ISBN 0-19-288002-0 , pp. 152-153.
- Robert Gourlay, Sutherland - a historical guide , Birlinn, Edinburgh, 1996 ISBN 1-874744-44-0 pp. 34, 94
Web links
Coordinates: 57 ° 57 '43.7 " N , 4 ° 2' 14.7" W.