Description

The monument is the remains of a later prehistoric roundhouse dating to between 1800 BC and AD 400. The roundhouse remains lie buried beneath the ploughsoil and are visible as cropmarks captured on oblique aerial photographs. The monument lies 25m above sea level on relatively level ground immediately SE of the S terrace of the Lunan Water.

A broad penannular gully 0.9m to 1.6m wide appears to represent the roundhouse outer wall. The gully encloses a circular area measuring 14.5m in diameter that represents the house interior. The gully appears to be open to the SE, suggesting the position of the house entrance. The monument lies on the W fringe of the dense landscape of prehistoric settlement known around the modern farms of Ironshill and Newbarns.

The scheduled area is circular on plan, 34m in diameter, centred on the centre of the roundhouse, as shown in red on the accompanying map. It includes the remains described above and an area around them within which evidence relating to the monument's construction, use and abandonment is expected to survive. On the SE side, the scheduled area specifically excludes a polytunnel present in 2013. The monument was first scheduled in 1994, but the scheduled area was not well positioned: the present amendment rectifies this.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland

Statement of Scheduling

The monument is of national importance because of its potential to add to our understanding of prehistoric house construction and domestic organisation and because it is an important component of the wider landscape of prehistoric settlement in this part of the Lunan Valley. It is part of a rare and significant concentration of settlement that provides evidence for social and economic change in eastern Scotland in the 1st millennia BC and AD. Our understanding of roundhouse character and distribution in one of the most important areas of known later prehistoric settlement would be diminished if this monument was to be lost or damaged.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland

Sources

Bibliography

Other information

RCAHMS records the monument as NO64NE 10. The Angus Sites and Monuments Record reference is NO64NE0010.

References

RCAHMS Aerial Photographs AN2893, AN3535, DP007737

McGill, C 2003, 'The excavation of a palisaded enclosure and associated structures at Ironshill East, near Inverkeilor, Angus', Taysife and Fife Archael Jour 9, 14-33.

Pollock, D 1997, 'The excavation of Iron Age buildings at Ironshill, Inverkeilor, Angus', Proc Soc Antiq Scot 127, 339-358.

Source: Historic Environment Scotland