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The Location of King Bridei’s Fort: New Clues from Adomnán’s Life of Columba?

By Fiona Campbell-Howes In my talk for NOSAS in October, I spent some time discussing the episodes in Adomnán’s Life of St Columba (hereafter the Life) in which the holy man visits the Inverness area, which Adomnán locates in provincia Pictorum, in the province of the Picts. For this blog I want to take a closer look at those episodes. In particular, I want to see if they contain any…

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Bothan: Beehive Shieling Dwellings in Harris and Lewis

By Cathy Dagg The following are some musings based on recent visits to some of the shieling structures of North Harris and South Lewis, unusually different from those in the mainland Highlands. There’s no original research involved and I am relying heavily on the notes and plans of previous archaeologists and amateurs who have also been intrigued by these structures. Some background on shieling…

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Chapelton Farm, near Inverness: A Fond Farewell

by Marion Ruscoe Our towns and cities are surrounded by farms which have been in existence, in some cases, for many hundreds of years.  They are all vulnerable to urban development and over the last 50 years Inverness has spread in all directions, swallowing up many farms to the east and south.  The latest development project to the east of Inverness is at Chapelton Farm, Balloch. Chapelton…

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Mesolithic Encounters: Tarradale Shell Midden Excavation, Autumn 2023

by Eric Grant 2023 excavations in Trench 2B In 2017 the Tarradale Through Time project excavated a shell midden (known as site 2B) located on a raised beach terrace at the foot of a palaeo-cliff  about 150 m south-east of Tarradale House, see previous blog post.  In September to October 2023 the site was revisited by the Tarradale Archaeological Team in order to continue the earlier…

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The Saltwater Mill, Petty:  A Wonder of the Parish

by Marion Ruscoe When I first started looking at the site of the Saltwater Mill at Petty Bay, I was writing a general survey of industry in Petty Parish (2019).  I discovered that there was very little primary evidence for the mill and access to the site was not easy.  In fact, at the time, I couldn’t see how to get down to the site, since the Castle Stuart Golf Course had taken over the area to…

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A History of the Road between Dingwall and Poolewe

From the written evidence of secondary sources and maps on the maps.nls and Scotlandspeople websites by Meryl Marshall Background In the years before the 18th Century the Highlands were regarded as a hostile backward country, travelling was difficult, there were few visitors and many journeys were made by boat. In 1793 George Brown reported that, The most necessary and useful line of road…

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Petty Bay on the Moray Firth, Inverness-shire

by Marion Ruscoe 1st ed. 25” OS map (NLS)  Petty Bay lies approximately 5 miles east of Inverness.  Today it’s bypassed by the A96, but a map of 1798 shows that the original road from Inverness to Ardersier and Fort George looped off the Inverness-Nairn route at Allanfearn and joined the present B9039 at Castle Stuart Farm. The 1st edition 25” Ordnance Survey map indicates a track running down…

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Carn Glas Chambered Cairns, Inverness: An Update

by Jonathan Wordsworth The following is an addendum to the previous Carn Glas blog post of July 2023. Drone image of Carn Glas after clearance of gorse looking north to Inverness and Moray Firth ©AHickie It took two more days of work in August to clear the remaining gorse scrub off the cairn to reveal the monument in its glory.  With funding from Historic Environment Scotland we were able to…

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Cairns in Clusters: Chambered Cairns in Assynt

By Gordon Sleight Carrachan Dubh chambered cairn near Inchdnadamph Over the last twenty years I have thoroughly enjoyed tramping around Assynt, sometimes on my own and sometimes with groups of friends.  That sense of enjoyment is often enhanced by surprises.  It might be disturbing a mountain hare and seeing it race away at speed or watching an overhead confrontation between golden and…

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Does Remote Loch an Tachdaidh Contain a Crannog?

by Roland Spencer-Jones This remote loch is far from any normal vehicular access. The boundary between Attadale and Pait estates runs roughly SW-NE through the middle of the loch. Approach routes to the loch are from Pait on Loch Monar to the NE, Attadale towards the head of Loch Carron in the W, and Killilan via Strath Duilleach and the Iron Lodge to the SW. There are three islands in the loch,…

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Carn Glas Chambered Cairns and Essich Farm, Inverness: An Interim Report

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Iron Age Hut Circles in the Middle of Nowhere: Submerged Prehistory in Upper Glen Cannich

by Roland Spencer-Jones Does every excavation and discovery have a story behind it? Maybe. This one certainly does. When did the story start? With shepherds moving into empty land in the early 19th century? With the gradual depopulation of Highland glens in the early half of the 20th century? With the construction of the largest dam in Scotland completed in 1952? Maybe it’s best to start this…

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Der Knoten international hat unterstützt Über 40 Millionen Partner Planen die Hochzeit in Bezug auf Bestrebungen

Der kleine Variation: Der Knoten international bietet umfangreich Methoden und Strategien für irgendjemand Planung a Ehe und Denken In welche Richtung soll ich gehen? Das Unternehmen Profil enthält The Knot, WeddingWire, Bodas, sowie anderen respektabel Systeme ausgerichtet auf Liebhaber die nur bekommen beteiligt oder hitched. Zusammen mit 40 Millionen Kunden in 15 Nationen ist The Knot…

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Highland Heritage Day 2023: A Way Forward?

by Susan Kruse Did you know that there are around 100 heritage organisations and over 50 museums in the Highlands – and a number of community trusts and individuals who have heritage projects on the go? Few of us know what others are doing, and we rarely have a chance to meet up. ARCH has over the years tried to find out contact details, in part due to work organising the Highland Archaeology…

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Skeletons under the Floorboards: A Multiple Iron Age  Burial in Applecross

by Cathy Dagg The Background In July of 2015 workmen renovating an old house in Applecross reported finding a human skull under the kitchen floor. They had, apparently, found other bones and thinking them to be animal, chucked them out. The skull initially looked like a cobble, similar to the cobbles that made the former storm beach that the house had been built on, but when it proved to be…

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Inchberry Farm and Steading, near Beauly – A Relationship with Serendipity

by Roland Spencer-Jones A view of the steading from the South A new report entitled Inchberry – a settlement, a farm, a steading and a family has just been posted to the NOSAS website. It describes the history of a farm and steading at Inchberry, on the south side of the Beauly Firth. What was remarkable about the work that went into the report was that serendipity provided most of the…

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The NOSAS Crannogs Project – Update, December 2022

The NOSAS Crannogs Project – Update, December 2022

by Richard Guest Loch Glass crannog, October 2022. The Crannogs project has now been running for a couple of years.  Starting as a desktop exercise, we have now progressed to some site investigation and have managed a couple of dives. A second phase of desktop study is underway and a picture of potential crannog occurrence in Wester Ross, Lochaber and Badenoch is beginning to emerge.  Wester…