Monument record 662 - BRUTHACH AN TIONAIL ARD, KILPHEDER, SOUTH UIST

NF72SW 1 7337 2022.

(NF 7337 2022) Wheelhouse Bruthach Sitheanach
OS 6"map, annotated by A L F Rivet (Assistant Archaeology Officer)

At Kilpheder, South Uist, on a site called Bruthach a Sithean or Bruthach Sitheanach, (the Brae of the Fairy Hill), a well-preserved aisled wheel-house was excavated by Lethbridge in 1951-2.
Objects found include pottery, bronze and iron pins, etc. An R.B. trumpet brooch, dated by R G Collingwood to the mid-2nd c. AD., was probably left behind on a ledge about 200 AD. (a date deduced by Lethbridge) when the building was abandoned.
Connected with the site are middens 150 yards and 350 yards south-west and 200 yards south-east (See NF71NW 10 & 11) One yielded a long-handled weaving comb.
The finds were donated to the N.M.A.S.
T C Lethbridge 1952; Proc Soc Antiq Scot 1961; R W Feachem 1963.

(Area NF 732 202) Group of several wheelhouses, (one partly excavated 1951), extensive middens etc.
Information from R W Feachem.

The remains of this aisled round-house are as planned and illustrated by Lethbridge, although several of the stone piers have collapsed. The walls stand to an average height of 2.4m. The hearth can just be discerned as a few stones protruding from the turf.
Surveyed at 1:2500.
No trace was found of the middens associated with the site or of other wheelhouses in the area.
Visited by OS (W D J) 6 May 1965.

The trumpet brooch is Roman, late 2nd century AD.
A S Robertson 1970.

NF 733 336-NF 758 140 Almost half of the South Uist machair has been surveyed between 1993 and 1995, in a single stretch from West Kilbride in the extreme S of the island to the N of the Ard Michael promontory, a distance of 20km with the width of the machair averaging about 1km (see unpublished reports, Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield). Existing RCAHMS records for prehistoric and early historic settlement sites number some 20 locations within this zone. The machair project has now increased this number to 81. Two of the RCAHMS sites, the broch/dun at Orosay (NF71NW 5) and the broch of Dun Ruaidh (NF72SW 7), are misidentifications.
The area most responsive to field survey on the machair is the section between Kildonan and Stoneybridge, the N 5km portion of the survey area. Here, where most of the surviving machair plain has not been covered by dunes, some 44 sites have been recognised. along with a grouping of Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age settlement mounds in the Kildonan area, the main settlement pattern is a set of clusters of Iron Age to Viking Age settlement mounds for each of the five townships. These Iron Age-Viking Age clusters may be viewed as predecessors to the township system first mapped in 1805 and still in use today.
A second concentration of sites has been found further S in the machair of Daliburgh and Kilpheder, where a total of 19 sites have been discovered in an area of 3 square kilometres. This density is all the more remarkable given the large extent of dune incursion on to the machair plain in this area. Within this zone two key house sites, both well preserved, have been excavated. One is Kilpheder wheelhouse (NF 7337 2022) of Middle Iron Age date and the other is the Cladh Hallan double roundhouse (NF72SW 17) of Late Bronze Age date. The most remarkable feature of prehistoric settlement in this area is the 500m long string of Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age settlement W of the modern cemetery. However, there is considerable potential for good preservation, as indicated by the 1994-95 excavations.
The results of the recent survey are by no means exhaustive but they do indicate a remarkable density of later prehistoric and early historic settlements on the machair. The pattern of proto-townships throughout the survey area holds reasonably well but there are gaps for the townships of Garrynamonie and Garryheillie.
Sponsor: Historic Scotland.
M Parker Pearson 1995.

64: Kilpheder, NF 7337 2022
11m diameter, 2m depth of deposits, excavated 1951, archaeological excavation not backfilled.
Lots of MIA pottery. Other finds - see excavation report. Apparently isolated wheelhouse, very well preserved but now in serious state of collapse.
Parker Pearson and Sharples

NF 732 202 Degraded hammerstone made from a beach pebble of Lewisian Gneiss found eroding from a footpath directly to the S of the wheelhouse remains. Approximately 95 x 90 x 54mm, with distinctive wear and batter traces on either end.
Deposited in Museum nan Eilean Siar
Sponsor: HS
Barrowman 2004, 139

Parker Pearson, M and Sharples, N, Dun Vulan Environs Survey, South Uist (Unpublished document). SWE41170.

T C Lethbridge, 1952, Proc Prehist Soc, 176-93 plans, illusts. (Bibliographic reference). SWE4035.

PSAS, 1958-9, Proc Soc Antiq Scot, 120 (Bibliographic reference). SWE5217.

C Thomas, 1961a, Archaeol J, 15 (Bibliographic reference). SWE7690.

R W Feachem, 1963b, A Guide to Prehistoric Scotland, 98-9 (Bibliographic reference). SWE2141.

A S Robertson, 1970a, Britannia, table 4 (Bibliographic reference). SWE6318.

M Macgregor, 1976, Early Celtic Art in North Britain, 9, 153, 155-6, No. 331 (Bibliographic reference). SWE4422.

M Parker Pearson, 1995b, Discovery and Excavation, Scotland, 110 (Bibliographic reference). SWE38871.

Council for Scottish Archaeology, 2004, Discovery and Excavation in Scotland (Bibliographic reference). SWE41193.