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How and why the ancients enchanted Great Britain and Brittany

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<< Other Photo Pages >> Grimsay, Bagh Nam Feadhag - Ancient Village or Settlement in Scotland in North Uist

Submitted by Andy B on Saturday, 20 March 2021  Page Views: 2470

Iron Age and Later PrehistorySite Name: Grimsay, Bagh Nam Feadhag
Country: Scotland
NOTE: This site is 0.2 km away from the location you searched for.

County: North Uist Type: Ancient Village or Settlement

Map Ref: NF8665257367
Latitude: 57.497743N  Longitude: 7.232746W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
3 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
4 Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
1 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
5

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Grimsay, Bagh Nam Feadhag
Grimsay, Bagh Nam Feadhag submitted by Creative Commons : Grimsay Wheelhouse This is possibly the best preserved example of a wheelhouse on North Uist and is not shown on the OS maps. Difficult to find, it is located between Loch Hornary and the north coast of Grimsay. It dates from the Iron Age. Copyright Bob Jones and licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Licence. (Vote or comment on this photo)
Possibly the best preserved example of a wheelhouse on North Uist and not shown on the OS maps. Difficult to find, it is located between Loch Hornary and the north coast of Grimsay. It dates from the Iron Age.

Most of the wheelhouses that have been excavated are in the open machair lands of the west coast. But there are others in less obvious locations. Roy Ashworth. a retired engineer living in Grimsay, built up a knowledge of the archaeology of the Western Isles over many years. In the early 1990s he became intrigued by the shieling mounds of the Uists. the green hillocks standing out from the surrounding landscape, with the remains of small shieling huts on lop of them. He wanted to know whether there were earlier structures concealed beneath, and formulated a somewhat impetuous plan to dig one.

In 1994 he began excavating one of a pair of mounds close to the shore on the north side of Grimsay. Ile worked single-handed on the site until 1997. Near the base of the mound he found a well-preserved wheelhouse, 8.5m in diameter, with 8 piers. It is not set into sand. but is a free-standing structure, like the wheelhouse at Clettraval. Like Clettraval too. its entrance faces west. There is a narrow aisle around the outer edge of all the piers but one. The pier north of the entrance is bonded into the outer wall; similar features arc found at Kilpheder and Udal. In the central space is a hearth, apparently reduced in size from a larger earlier version. An under floor air duct feeding the fire runs south-east from the hearth, passing under the wheelhouse wall and emerging 2.5m beyond it.

Partly underlying the wheelhouse are traces of an earlier circular building, probably an earlier wheelhouse of similar size and lying only 2.5m west of its successor. Only the western section has been exposed. No entrance can be seen in it, suggesting that the earlier building had a different orientation. Some later structures on the site have been preserved by the excavator.

These include a substantial rectangular building, and a 2m diameter shieling of recent date which sits over the wheelhouse wall. Both help to demonstrate the sequence of events on the site. The many artefacts from the wheelhouse were not systematically recorded by context, but they were carefully collected and are now held in the Archaeological Service premises in Stomoway. They include large amounts of pottery, steatite loom weights, and crucibles and a mould for metal-working. The range and quantity of finds suggests that the wheelhouse site was occupied for several centuries, perhaps into the Viking period.

The house is in good land by Uist standards - the remains of successive styles of cultivation rigs Iie all around - with easy access to building stone and to a sheltered sea inlet. It seems very possible that a second mound 80m to the north contains another wheelhouse. On two islets in nearby Loch Hornary !here are Iron Age duns.

This corner of Grimsay seems to have supported a substantial population in Iron Age times, though we can only guess al the relationships between the different settlements. At the time of writing (2000) there were plans to
consolidate the Grimsay wheelhouse. and to provide an access footpath.

If the project succeeds the site will be robust enough to withstand the impact of visitors who, we hope.
will wish to sec this best preserved of all the excavated wheelhouses in Uist.

More in The Lost Wheelhouses of Uist - a guide to some of the excavated wheelhouses of North & South Uist by Susan Hothersall and Robert Tye.
https://www.academia.edu/356702/ (free registration required)

Note: A 3D model of a late prehistoric wheelhouse, made using photogrammetry by the ACCORD project. Model, video and more details in the comments on our page.
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Grimsay, Bagh Nam Feadhag
Grimsay, Bagh Nam Feadhag submitted by markj99 : Grimsay Wheelhouse (Vote or comment on this photo)

Grimsay, Bagh Nam Feadhag
Grimsay, Bagh Nam Feadhag submitted by markj99 : Entrance to Grimsay Wheelhouse (Vote or comment on this photo)

Grimsay, Bagh Nam Feadhag
Grimsay, Bagh Nam Feadhag submitted by markj99 : Interior structure of Grimsay Wheelhouse (Vote or comment on this photo)

Grimsay, Bagh Nam Feadhag
Grimsay, Bagh Nam Feadhag submitted by markj99 : Grimsay Wheelhouse (30.06.11) (Vote or comment on this photo)

Grimsay, Bagh Nam Feadhag
Grimsay, Bagh Nam Feadhag submitted by markj99 : External Wall of Grimsay Wheelhouse

Grimsay, Bagh Nam Feadhag
Grimsay, Bagh Nam Feadhag submitted by cornishstargazer : A walk to the Grimsay Wheelhouse led by the UIST community archaeology group. This is an incredibly well-preserved wheelhouse, with the remains of a prehistoric roundhouse emerging from under the bottom excavated layer.

Do not use the above information on other web sites or publications without permission of the contributor.
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"Grimsay, Bagh Nam Feadhag" | Login/Create an Account | 3 News and Comments
  
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Re: The Grimsay Wheelhouse by Andy B on Saturday, 10 June 2023
(User Info | Send a Message)
Canmore: This site has been extensively excavated, but without much record. The finds suggest that it was a wheelhouse overbuilt by later structures, of which the latest was a pre-Clearance sheiling. Viking Age pottery, and mediaeval pottery also indicate the probability of near continuous occupation. A site whose finds would repay further study.

A partially excavated structural complex is located above the coast on rough grazing land. Fragments of a at least four buildings are exposed, the most extensive of which is a wheelhouse of some 8m diameter. This appears to have been built on th esite of an earlier, curvilinear building, the walls of which are exposed in places beneath the level of the wheelhouse floor. A later subrectangular structure has been built against the south side of the wheelhouse, incorporating part of tis fabric. In the immediate hinterland there are numerous protruding stones, suggestive of further buried structures. The wheelhouse contains eight piers and is divided into central and peripheral floor areas. Its walls stand up to 1.8m high. The remains of a hearth lie at the centre. The site has not been consolidated and is slowly degrading.
Moore and Wilson 2005, 219
https://canmore.org.uk/site/320517/grimsay-bagh-nam-feadhag
[ Reply to This ]

The Baleshire Basket - 3,500-year-old basket excavated at North Uist beach by Andy B on Saturday, 20 March 2021
(User Info | Send a Message)
News from 2014 that I had missed: An artefact thought to be 3,500 years old that was uncovered by the tide on a Western Isles beach has been excavated before being washed away.
The prehistoric basket was discovered in an area of shoreline where the sea has been eroding the land at Baleshare in North Uist. Archaeologists have managed to remove the object with help from the local community.

More on our closest page for this site: Baile Sear
https://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=17118#comments
[ Reply to This ]

3D models and photos of The Grimsay Wheelhouse by Andy B on Saturday, 20 March 2021
(User Info | Send a Message)
The Grimsay Wheelhouse, Iron Age structure - NGR NF 86720 57315
The wheelhouse, which is of a later prehistoric date, is located on the northern coastline of the island of Grimsay at a place called Bagh nam Feadag, situated between North Uist and Benbecula. The site can be visited by car over a causeway, although not visible from the road it is only a short 15 minute walk over the machair. In its immediate vicinity, overlooking the sea inlet at Baymore, Bàgh Mòr, are four other roundhouse structures, which are obscured under mounds of sand and vegetation.

The site has a partial event entry on Canmore (Event ID 969085) where it is stated that the “site would merit further study” and that it “has not been consolidated and is slowly degrading.” It was last visited in 2005 by the Royal Commission of Ancient and Historical M
onuments. It is also listed in the Scottish Monuments Record maintained by Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, local authority for the Western Isles. This site is not a Scheduled Monument.

https://accordproject.wordpress.com/2014/10/22/an-icon-of-the-uists-the-grimsay-wheelhouse-in-3d/

http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/access_ahrc_2016/index.cfm

The 3D Model is here:
http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/access_ahrc_2016/downloads_pg.cfm

Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyEdbhexz78


More at
https://accordproject.wordpress.com/2015/02/23/more-3d-models-from-uist/

How to build 3D models using aerial videos: the Access Archaeology group pass on their experience
https://accordproject.wordpress.com/2014/10/27/how-to-build-3d-models-using-aerial-videos-the-access-archaeology-group-pass-on-their-experience/

Also: This enigmatic and unrecorded site was only recently discovered by a local resident in a remote peninsula on the island of Grimsay. It comprises a long natural rock outcrop jutting out into a marshy area, which has at one end a curious V shaped plan structure with corbelled rubble walls and a water basin at its node point. The image is made up of around 30 no 150kB digital stills taken off a video recorded by a Canon Ixus 220 camera suspended from a Cody kite. Copyright: David Newman.

Aerial kite photo here: https://accordproject.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/photoscan-1-e1414415858818.png
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