This site is entirely user-supported. See how you can help.
We don't have any photos of this monument yet. Why don't you be the first to send us one?
If Google Street View is available, the image is from the best available vantage point looking, if possible, towards the location of the monument. Where it is not available, the satellite view is shown instead.
Latitude: 55.1901 / 55°11'24"N
Longitude: -3.0935 / 3°5'36"W
OS Eastings: 330479
OS Northings: 588975
OS Grid: NY304889
Mapcode National: GBR 68VF.28
Mapcode Global: WH6XB.GT41
Entry Name: Calkin,settlements and cultivation terraces 300m N of
Scheduled Date: 26 March 1987
Source: Historic Environment Scotland
Source ID: SM4394
Schedule Class: Cultural
Category: Prehistoric domestic and defensive: cultivation terraces; Secular: settlement, including deserted, d
Location: Westerkirk
County: Dumfries and Galloway
Electoral Ward: Annandale East and Eskdale
Traditional County: Dumfriesshire
The monument is complex, comprising a well preserved earthwork of the Iron Age, cultivation terraces of uncertain date and a structure and field system of the pre-improvement period. The earthwork is an enclosure lying in the saddle E of Auchendona Hill, measuring 34.5m in diameter within a bank. There are traces of a counterscarp bank. The broad cultivation terraces which lie downhill to the E and W of the enclosure seem, at their nearest approach, to override the counterscarp bank, indicating perhaps that they are later.
The pre-improvement farmstead lies to the E. It comprises a rectangular buidling set along the contour measuring c.10m by 5.4m within turf-covered footings spread up to 1.8m in thickness and 0.4m in height. The building has a W extension, slightly platformed, and a ditch around its upper side. An enclosure is attached, which measures c.58m by 38m within a turf bank 1.5m across and 0.3m high. The enclosure contains traces of rig and furrow cultivation (overlying the cultivation terraces) and some lazy beds. The cultivation terraces seem to be of Iron Age to Medieval date. They cover an area of about 5 hectares.
Source: Historic Environment Scotland
The monument is of national importance because of the good preservation of the field characteristics of its principal element. The Iron Age settlement is well preserved and undisturbed, with the exception of the E portion of its bank. The remains of the rectangular building of the pre-improvement period are very well preserved and show structural detail. The monument is of national importance to the themes of settlement and economy in the Iron Age, the pre-improvement period and, because of the cultivation terraces, the period in between. Taken with monuments of similar periods in the area, the monument is of national importance to the themes of Iron Age and pre-clearance landscape development and organisation. The cultivation terraces are of national importance as well preserved examples of a rare type in this area, to the theme of agricultural techniques in the early historical period.
Source: Historic Environment Scotland
Bibliography
RCAHMS record the site as NY38 NW 1.
Source: Historic Environment Scotland
Other nearby scheduled monuments