Rosal: a deserted township in Strath Naver, Sutherland

Abstract

NC 690415. The survey is based upon fieldwork, documentary sources and excavation, and demonstrates a long history of intermittent settlement from the Bronze Age until the Clearances of 1814-8. About seventy structures of the period immediately before the Clearances are distinguished and classed as dwellings, outhouses, yards and corn-drying kilns; the absence of the more specialised buildings indicates the nature of Rosal as a purely farming community. The buildings and arable rigs are contained within an irregular stone wall and form three clusters. One complex examined in detail contained a longhouse, an adjacent barn, an outhouse included within a stretch of dyke, a stackyard and a large pit. The pottery, mass-produced imitations of English wares, was probably made in the Glasgow or Forth areas, and dates from the late 18th and very early 19th centuries (see also 70/894). Au