Ballater & crathie Community magazine - Ballater Community

Glen Muick Scotland RuralPast Group by Glyn JonesScotland’s Rural Past was a five-year,nationwide project, which supported localcommunities across Scotland to investigate desertedrural settlements dating from the medieval andpost-medieval periods. The project, which waslaunched in October 2006, was hosted by theRoyal Commission on the Ancient and HistoricalMonuments of Scotland (RCAHMS), withsupport from the Heritage Lottery Fund, theNational Trust for Scotland, Historic Scotland,and Highlands and Islands Enterprise. Throughthe work of the Historic Rural Settlement Trustthese organisations recognised the need to improveour understanding of these rural sites and encouragetheir conservation by involving local people.In September 2008 the Scotland’s Rural Pastteam ran a training weekend for local people atThe Spittal of Glen Muick visitor centre. About47twenty folk attended the initial training course andfrom that a dedicated, hard core group of six ofus have continued to meet on a monthly basis toput the skills we learnt into action and record ourlocal archaeology. Another fifty groups similar tous existed throughout Scotland. The Scotland’sRural Past project came to an end in 2011.However, the Royal Commission let us keep allour surveying kit and were still very keen to acceptall our records.Sandy Mitchell in the ruins of a kiln at Glen MuickInvercauld LodgesSelf-Catering AccommodationPrices from:£55/night & £350/week12a Invercauld RoadBALLATERAB35 5RPTel: 013397 55015Our initial aim was to record all the archaeologyin Glen Muick to a standard which could beaccepted for inclusion by The Royal Commissionfor Ancient and Historic Monuments Scotland ontheir Canmore database. The ground surveying isbacked up by archival research. After four yearsof work we have almost achieved that aim. Withonly the largest and most interesting site in GlenMuick left to survey – Blacharrage - and we hopeto complete this early this year.Our surveys, so far, have been along two mainstrands- surveys of settlements and townships onthe lower ground and surveys of individualstructures further up the hills, such as shielings,still houses and animal enclosures. The ultimateobjective is to produce a landscape scale mapof the whole of Glen Muick with all of these