Ancient Sites of Badenoch Reconstructed

Badenoch the Storylands has a long, rich and fascinating history featuring the Picts from the Iron Age and the Jacobite Risings of the 17th & 18th Century. Visit this amazing region in the Scottish Highlands, part of the Cairngorms National Park. Download the Badenoch the Storylands app and using Augmented Reality you can visualise how it once looked many years ago!

Visit Badenoch and be able to stand in the footsteps of our forefathers!

Ruthven Barracks

Ruthven Barracks were built by George II’s government, between 1719-1721, at an estimated cost of £1555. Troops were stationed there following the 1715 Jacobite rising and their purpose was to maintain law and order and enforce the Disarming Act of 1716. it was put to its first and last military test in 1745-46 in an ironic twist of fate. The garrison had once resisted an attacking group of Jacobite’s, only to surrender to them when they eventually returned with field artillery the following year. Ruthven fell into disrepair not long after this attack, an by 1787, a report expressed concern about drainage, dampness and the strength of the foundations. The site was eventually abandoned.

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Dun da Lamh Hill Fort

Dun da Lamh is a Pictish hill fort, dating back to approximately 500 AD. The name Dun da Lamh is Gaelic, and means fort of the two hands, likely referring to two distinct peaks within the perimeter of the fort. The Picts were Celtic speaking people and inhabited a large span of northern and eastern Scotland. Their way of life is believed to have been typical of many Iron Age societies in northern Europe. The hill fort is thought to have been not only for defence and fortification purposes, but also as a gathering place for the community. The fort has not been formally excavated, but the grounds were archaeologically surveyed in 2010-2011.

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Torr Alvie

The site appears to have been severely disturbed by the building of a monument commemorating the Duke of Gordon who died in 1836. Also on this Torr, but outside the area of the hill fort, lies the Waterloo Cairn, built in 1815. This cairn is of interest because there were very few war memorials built prior to the Boer War. The Torr overlooks the area where it is now thought that the Battle of Nechtansmere actually took place, between the Torr and the Monadhliath mountains. Nearby, overlooking Croftgowan and on the route to the Torr, is a field containing a collection of about 40 lairs in a barrow cemetery which was visible in an aerial survey in the dry summer of 2018.

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Easter Delfour

Easter Delfour is a fascinating Bronze age site and what is known as a ‘Clava Cairn’. Although not an official archaeological classification, Clava Cairns relate to a series of large cairns found in northern Scotland, whicha ll follow a similar pattern. Officially classified as a ‘ring cairn’, Easter Delfour is composed of a rounded stone circle, a kerb, and a cairn in the middle…. almost shaped like a polo mint! Believed to be a burial site, archaeologists consider the site to be very symbolic. Although there are no answers of precisely when or who Easter Delfour was built for, significance is conveyed through the precision in which the stones were placed.

Clava cairns usually consist of an inner and outer ring of kerbstones (the space between them filled in with smaller boulders) and a surrounding bank, or platform – the whole being enclosed by a ring of standing-stones.  As with recumbent stone circles, the outer kerbstones and the standing-stones are usually graded in height, with the tallest situated in the south-west and the shortest in the north-east.  Today, only one standing-stone from the surrounding circle still remains, vertical and firmly set.

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Raitts Cave

Lynchat Souterrain, known locally as Raitts Cave, is a horse-shoe shaped souterrain, dating to the late Iron Age, around 100-400AD. Located approximately 2.5 miles from Kingussie, on a hill behind the small village of Lynchat, the souterrain has a broken roof, allowing it to be walked into. The roof broke in 1835 during the sites first excavation, changing the original narrow entrance which had to be crawled through.

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Raitts Township

Upper Raitts Township is thought to have been occupied from the early 17th century and cleared in the 19th century by James MacPherson, its then landlord. The footings of several houses and other buildings, as well as a track, and this corn kiln, can be seen. The Easter Raitts site was extensively excavated and documented between 1996 and 2000, with some of the findings dating back to the neolithic age. This settlement formed the basis for the ‘Township’ at the nearby Highland Folk Museum in Newtonmore.

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