Chapter XV: Section III: Notice of a Crannog at Barhapple Loch, Glenluce, Wigtownshire

(By the Rev. GEORGE WILSON, Glenluce, C.M.S.A. Scot.)

Barhapple Loch, on the farm of Derskelpin, lay a little to the south of the road from Portpatrick to Dumfries, just beyond the fourth milestone east from Glenluce, between two round hills called Derlauchlin and Barhapple, and about 285 feet above the level of the sea. The water-parting is at Barhapple Hill. The loch was about 1500 feet long, and 1000 feet broad, surrounded by deep peat bog, except on part of the east shore where it touched Barhapple, and rested on a bottom of deep soft peat. Although the water was only a few feet deep, its black colour and the inaccessible nature of the shore on the west side prevented the discovery of any trace of lake-dwellings. It was drained in the autumn of 1878, and in November of that year Mr. Shearer, the tenant, told me that a small round patch of logs and stones had become visible.

On the 15th of October 1880, our President, the Earl of Stair, assembled a party to explore the crannog. There were present with him Admiral Sir John C. Dalrymple-Hay, Bart., M.P., and Sir Herbert E. Maxwell, Bart., M.P., two of our Vice-Presidents; the Hon. Hugh Dalrymple, Mr. J. Pendarves Vivian, M.P., Mr. Vans Agnew of Barnbarroch, Mr. J. Leveson Stewart of Glen Ogil, with Mr. R. W. Cochran-Patrick, M.P., and myself, the Secretaries of the Association. Our digging was stopped at a depth of two and a half or three feet by the influx of water, yet we found a good deal to interest us. This lake-dwelling, so far as explored, consists mainly of piles and platforms of wood, with rough stones at some points. It is about 280 feet from the west shore, but the gangway had run about 550 feet to the east shore at the foot of Barhapple, where there is hard ground. It is surrounded by a row of oak piles, enclosing a space 175 feet long from north to south, and 127 feet broad, and rounded at the angles. While the digging was going on Sir Herbert Maxwell took these measurements for me, and Mr. Vivian walked round on the soft peat and counted the piles in the outer row, of which 134 were visible. There is a slight gap at the west side, and a larger one on the south side, with the piles on each side of it more thinly set. An irregular line on the Plan marks off a part of the enclosure on the east side, which is about 9 inches higher than the rest, and is the only part that can be walked upon with ease in ordinary weather. After heavy rain the whole is still inaccessible, owing to the imperfect outfall of the drainage.

Thirty-one feet from the outside piles towards the south-east, there was a layer of rough, large stones, marked B on Plate III., about 15 feet long from north to south, and 11 feet broad. Seventeen feet farther north, and 18 feet from the east side, there was a spade-shaped platform, with the convex end to the north, about 26 feet in length and breadth. The Plan shows its appearance in February 1879, with several pieces of wood flooring towards the east side, and a layer of large rough stones at A. In October 1880 some of the logs had rotted away, and others were pierced through by the shoots of the marsh plants, which are gradually covering the partially drained area. Thirty feet to the west of A, there was a circular layer of rough stones about 10 feet in diameter, surrounded by several rings of piles. On removing some loose dry peat on the east part of A, we found a floor of oak logs, laid north and south, 10 feet 6 inches in length and 8 feet in breadth. The surface was somewhat flat; but this may have been caused by exposure to the weather. The interstices were closely packed with white clay and the sphagnum moss, so common in our bogs, with a few stakes driven between them. At the west or inner side of this floor there was a log 13 feet 6 inches long, 1 foot broad, and 8 inches deep. Beyond it was a layer of large rough stones from 9 to 12 inches deep, which had been disturbed by some idle visitors, so that its exact extent cannot be given. Under the stones was a thin layer of peat, then a log floor resting on clay and stones, and under that a second floor, the parts of which were sloping. Under the large oak log already mentioned lay a few birch logs sloping towards the north-west, and covering at the left side one angle of a frame 6 feet 6 inches square, made of four oak beams, that on the south-east side having two square-cut mortise holes, measuring 6 by 5 inches, and 4 feet apart, and that on the opposite side having one mortise hole with a piece of the upright still in it. In the angle between this frame and the south end of the large log there was a circular hearth of rough stones bedded in clay, and a similar hearth beyond the north-west angle, where there seems to have been another square frame without mortises. There were several inches in depth of ashes, with charred wood, and fragments of bone too small and wasted to indicate what animal they belonged to. West of the second hearth the following section was noted in descending series:--

(_a_.) Rough stones, 9 inches.

(_b_.) Peat, 12 inches.

(_c_.) Ashes, 5 inches.

(_d_.) White clay, 3 or 4 inches.

(_e_.) Ashes.

Under the floor first described there was a layer of smaller sticks and branches of oak, hazel, and birch, and at the north-east we found under the branches a layer of the common bracken, _Pteris aquilina_. The influx of water prevented further examination, but at different places the spade struck on logs which could not be seen. The wet state of the peat, ashes, and clay made exact search difficult. Near the second hearth we found a long rude whetstone, a hammer-stone of water-rolled quartzite pebble, a fragment of smoothly-worked wood, 3 inches long, 2 broad, and 1/2 an inch thick, which may have been part of a ladle or large spoon, and a small branch like one's little finger, rudely pointed, and with an untrimmed bent head. When unpacked at the Museum, these pieces of wood had gone to pieces.

A trench cut from the hearths to B showed logs and stones under the stone floor there, but not in any regular order. Under the stones, at C, we got two broad pieces of oak about 4-1/2 feet long, which may have been parts of a canoe.

Near the beginning of the gangway, at the end of a log, there rolled from a labourer's spade a ring of unevenly polished cannel coal, which is shown in Fig. 187, full size.

The piles are pointed, and show the axe-marks distinctly. Two or three branches, 2 inches thick, had been severed by a single cut. The piles are from 6 to 8 inches thick, but I saw one a foot thick. One which was pulled up was 5 feet long. The Plan shows the radiating and curved arrangement of the piles.

At the south-east of the crannog, a few feet from the edge, two piles 6 feet apart show where the gangway entered. Two or three are seen farther off, then about twenty at a place where the gangway seems to have widened to nearly 12 feet, and beyond these are two other pairs, the last being about 100 feet from the shore. Beyond that the piles have rotted away through exposure to the weather in dry seasons. There are decayed remains of timber at various places round the shore.

While we were digging at the crannog, Sir Herbert Maxwell, who is an experienced observer of lake-dwellings, explored the whole circuit of the loch, and reported that he had found some logs laid like a corduroy road. I did not see them at the time, and when I went back frost and flood had hidden the traces of them. At the letter C I have indicated pretty nearly the spot where they were seen. Perhaps another platform was there.

In April 1881, when verifying some details, I observed a few piles at the point marked D, between the crannog and the north shore, and reached them with difficulty. The nearest is about 120 feet from the shore, and is the first in a straight line of four piles, set at distances of 6, 10, and 8 feet, with two others 6 and 7 feet to the left, nearly opposite the second and third. At E I have marked the probable position in the peat bog of an object described by me in "Notes on the Crannogs and Lake-Dwellings in Wigtownshire," in the _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_, vol. ix. page 337,--"_Barhapple Loch_, four miles east of Glenluce, close to the coach road.--James MʽCulloch, one of my deacons, told me that about the year 1842, in cutting peat about 40 yards from the west side of this loch, he came on a circle of stakes (about a dozen) from the thickness of the arm to that of the leg, and about 5 feet long; the heads at least 2 feet below the surface. The stakes were of hazel, pointed by four axe-cuts, 3-1/2 to 4 inches broad, and some of them 5 inches long. The circle was cut away at two times, and was at least 5 feet in diameter; coarse branches were twisted among the stakes like wicker-work. No trace of clay." In 1871 I reported this as indicating that some dwellings might yet be found in this loch. It seems to have been a _marsh_-dwelling, like some of those found near lakes in Switzerland.

The crannogs were probably used as places of refuge, although they may also have been occupied constantly. There is often a fort on the top of some neighbouring hill, to which the lake-dwellers may have gone when the lochs were frozen and the crannogs open to invasion. We have an example of this at Machermore, Glenluce. The two round hills between which Barhapple Loch lay have both been ploughed, and show no trace of fortification or dwellings. But beyond Barhapple, and half a mile eastward, on the farm of Barlea, a small knoll south of Barfad rises out of the bog like a peninsula. It is nameless on the Ordnance Survey Maps, but on an old map of Blairderry and Barlea, which must be above a hundred years old, it is called _Drumearnachan_. There are traces here of an old village or settlement, although it has been partially ploughed. At the lowest part of Barfad there is a ring of turf and stone 17 by 16 feet in diameter. 138 feet to the south are the remains of a wall or breast-work 126 feet long and 12 broad. Beyond it several foundations are seen in a straight line north and south. At 96 feet is the bottom of a cairn 30 feet long and 22 broad, and 40 feet to the left of it a roughly-paved circular floor, 6 feet in diameter, which has been saved from the plough by having a large boulder rolled on to it. Thirty-six feet beyond the cairn is a 9-feet circular foundation of stones; 26 feet farther on an oval lying across the line, 15 by 13 feet; 8 feet farther on, an 11-foot ring; 59 feet beyond that, a small circular patch of stones; and another, 45 feet farther on, with a low grassy cairn 10 feet in diameter, 36 feet off at the west. Sixty-two feet south-east from the last foundation in the straight row is a circular turf and stone ring, 10-1/2 feet thick, 3-1/2 high, and 48 feet in diameter over all, with the entrance-gap at the _south-west_. On the 6-inch Ordnance Map it is marked "site of cairn," but I have never found any one who had heard of a cairn there. Part of the enclosed space is somewhat stony, and the position of the entrance-gap is peculiar, all the others I have seen or heard of having it at the south-east. Many years ago, the late tenant, Mr. MʽIlwraith of Kilfillan, asked me to go and see this ring, because he thought it had been surrounded by two oval rows of earth-fast stones. I went and made careful measurements, with this result, that the stones _may_ have been arranged in order, but there has been too much disturbance by the plough to make this more than a guess. For a long time I regarded such rings as small forts; but have lately begun to think they may have been places of interment. I have heard of three instances in which the plough, in levelling down such rings, turned up crocks of coarse pottery, not in the enclosed space, but in the rings themselves. The attention of observers elsewhere is called to this fact.

Half a mile due north from the Barhapple crannog, passing Knockiecore, Barrel Hill, and Derniemore Hill on the left, and Tamrieroach Moss, Derhagie Hill, and Blairderry Hill on the right, just beyond the old military road, we reach a low rocky hill surrounded by a peat bog, which unfortunately has lost its ancient name, and is called from its broad shape the Braid Hill. It is on the farm of High Dergoals; and Mr. Dougan, the tenant, told me that many years ago he found, in cutting peat at the south side of it, at a depth of 4 feet, three or four stakes, apparently of oak, 3 or 4 inches in circumference, and pointed by a single cut. The higher ground is rocky and uneven, and scattered over it are the remains of several small cairns and rings. At the west end is a 10-foot ring, a cairn with the remains of a stone grave in the centre, and beyond it two others lying east and west, with a foundation between them, 27 by 14 feet, with the corners much rounded. Towards the middle there are two circular foundations, three others on the north slope, three on the south, and three more at the east end, all so indistinct that it is difficult to say whether they have been huts or cairns. On the slope at the east end there are two rings. It is impossible to know whether either of these sites has been occupied by the Barhapple lake-dwellers. There are no others near it, although there are several other ancient village sites in Glenluce, some of which I hope to describe in a future volume. There have been four other lochs in Old Luce parish with crannogs. The frequent occurrence of the syllables _der_, _dir_, or _dar_, in the names of the places near Barhapple, shows that long ago they were clothed with trees. Here is a topographic rhyme, by some unknown native bard, communicated to me by Mr. Thomas MʽCormick, farmer at Mindork, in Kirkcowan:--

"Knocketie and Knockietore,
Laniegoose and Laniegore,
Dirnefuel and Dirniefranie, wee
Barsolas and Derrnagie."