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Latitude: 56.4214 / 56°25'16"N
Longitude: -2.8871 / 2°53'13"W
OS Eastings: 345371
OS Northings: 725812
OS Grid: NO453258
Mapcode National: GBR VM.LCBT
Mapcode Global: WH7RK.MVCP
Entry Name: Kirkton House, roundhouses 780m and 805m ESE of
Scheduled Date: 28 April 1999
Last Amended: 22 August 2013
Source: Historic Environment Scotland
Source ID: SM6790
Schedule Class: Cultural
Category: Prehistoric domestic and defensive: hut circle, roundhouse
Location: Leuchars
County: Fife
Electoral Ward: Tay Bridgehead
Traditional County: Fife
The monument is the remains of two roundhouses that represent an unenclosed prehistoric settlement of the Bronze Age or Iron Age (between 1800 BC and AD 400). The remains are buried beneath the plough soil and are visible as cropmarks captured on oblique aerial photographs. The house to the N is indicated by a curving gully about 1.1m wide enclosing a space 14m in diameter. A dark cropmark suggesting a sunken area of floor is visible towards the SE of the monument. The second house, 75m to the S, is indicated by a curving gully bounding an area measuring 14.5m in diameter. The monument lies at about 15m OD on land that slopes very gently towards the E. It lies just E of Kirkton Wood and 1.7km W of Tentsmuir Forest. The monument was first scheduled in 1999 but the documentation did not meet modern standards: the present amendment rectifies this and focuses the scheduling more closely on the most clearly visible archaeological remains.
The two areas to be scheduled are circular on plan to include the remains described above and areas around them within which evidence relating to the monument's construction, use and abandonment may survive, as shown in red on the accompanying map. The scheduled area to the N measures 50m in diameter; the area to the S measures 48m in diameter.
Source: Historic Environment Scotland
The monument is of national importance because of its potential to make a significant addition to knowledge and understanding of later prehistoric rural settlement in SE Scotland. The cropmarks suggest the presence of a sunken floor within one of the houses. This suggests a robust feature that will preserve occupation evidence. The monument is particularly important because it is part of a dense cluster of prehistoric settlement remains, which form an archaeological landscape of great importance for understanding the development of prehistoric building types, economy and social structure. Our understanding of the distribution and character of later prehistoric settlement in lowland Scotland would be diminished if this monument were lost or damaged.
Source: Historic Environment Scotland
Bibliography
RCAHMS records the monument as NO42NE 48.
Aerial photographs used: RCAHMS F6986
Source: Historic Environment Scotland
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