‘By yon bonnie banks’: Exploring the archaeology of Ben Lomond

This article is from Current Archaeology issue 432

Subscribe now for full access and no adverts

Ben Lomond forms the central focus of Scotland’s first National Park, Loch Lomond and the Trossachs, which was established in 2002. As the most southerly Munro (a Scottish mountain over 3,000ft in height – Ben Lomond measures 3,196ft), it is often people’s first introduction to hillwalking in Scotland, climbed by more than 50,000 people every year, with another 40,000 passing its western foot as they walk along the shore-side, long-distance trail called the West Highland Way. The National Trust for Scotland looks after 2,173ha (5,370 acres) of the mountain, which has numerous natural heritage designations but no Scheduled Monuments. Over recent decades, however, archaeological fieldwork has documented an equally rich historic environment within the NTS estate.

Our story begins back in 1995, when the Trust commissioned John Hunter and a team from the University of Bradford, and later of Birmingham, to undertake an archaeological walkover survey of Ben Lomond. This investigation proved remarkably productive, locating some 44 house sites concentrated around the lochside settlements of Blairvockie and Ardess, as well as five shieling groups higher up the hillside at Coille Mhor, Coire Odhar, Coire Corrach, Glashet Burn, and Tom Eas. There were also lengths of dyke and areas of ridge-and-furrow cultivation, while the team also recorded a number of bloomery mounds – small furnaces associated with iron production.

The results of this survey still form the core of the Trust’s Historic Environment Record for the property, and more recent excavations have added important details to this data set. Let’s explore some of the key findings, from the lochside up to the mountain’s summit.

Kailyard clues

The first site to be excavated in 1995 was a 19th-century farmstead at Ross, on the improved, low-lying ground beside the loch on what today is Blairvockie Farm. The fields in this area were known to have been a focus of settlement, with around 30 households spread across seven different townships by the early 1700s, though some had disappeared by the start of the 19th century. On this particular site, during the original investigation, the team produced an excellent plan of the surviving buildings, as well as carrying out a geophysical survey of the surrounding area and opening a number of small trial trenches.

There was still more to learn, though, and a couple of years ago the Trust revisited the site to open more trenches, as well as a grid of test pits in the kailyard (a kind of small, enclosed garden plot) to the north. Excavating in kailyards is a technique we have used at a number of locations (Ben Lawers, Torridon, Iona, and Glencoe); these gardens were used for winter vegetables, and the assumption is that waste material and rubbish would have been dumped on a midden heap before being spread over the enclosed plot – making them fertile ground for finds. Sure enough, at Ross the ten test pits excavated in the kailyard recovered a range of pottery, glass, and clay tobacco-pipe fragments. We opened two trenches, too, within the rectangular building lying to the south of the main farmstead block. Trench 1 revealed a well-built cobbled floor from which a clay tobacco-pipe bowl was recovered, while Trench 2 proved even more illuminating. Located within the western part of the structure, it revealed a floor surface on which lay horse shoes, part of a horse harness, and a gin trap. Perhaps this small space had served as a tack room.