The arrangements of pairs of buildings facing one another across a cobbled roadway has been known since Viking times and can still be seen in many Norse settlements. This may have been a convenient way of driving and controlling animals in and out of byres. A cobbled roadway or courtyard was required, giving a hard under footing for stock and people, and served the two house-byres. Some shelter may have been created between the buildings.
Cobbled and paved surfaces around the site will be seen to vary in the quality of their construction, the sizes and shapes of stones used, and therefore the comfort experienced in walking on them. All the stones have been quarried and this is also true of stones used in the erection of buildings.
Building 10
Building 10 is a complex structure, much more modified throughout its history. The best preserved room, now measuring 7.2m x 3.8m, was originally a byre with an open drain running down the centre of the floor and discharging through the east gable. It is likely that the divisional cross wall did not exist at that time because the floor surface runs below it and also below the secondary east gable and the long north wall, both of which must have been rebuilt in response to subsidence or collapse. This end of the original building has therefore been reduced in the floor area by approximately 12m2. Then the new walls were built, the function must still have been a byre because the drain was carefully maintained under the new gable. Also, along the inside of the north long wall, a series of stakeholes were detected, which respected the new wall and are interpreted as being some form of device to keep fodder off the ground, preventing it from being spoiled before consumption. These small stake-holes are a common feature in all the byres, including the basement of the bastle house.
Ultimately, the byre was converted into a house, the drain was infilled and two hearths were created on the stones. Slabs of slate were laid along the inside face of the walls to form a better floor surface. What may be the position of a sleeping area, perhaps for a box bed, was made with cobble stones and a slate back-plate in the angle of the cross wall and the long wall. Objects such as pottery, thimbles, buckles and the clay tobacco pipes also confirm human occupation. The entrance into this room from the roadway is adjacent to the cross wall which has a connecting doorway into the western end of the building.
The west end of the building was poorly preserved but much could be deduced from surviving features. There were at least three successive stone floors at this end and, as already implied, this part of the building may originally have been the house. Certainly at the western extremity there has been a small byre shown by cobble stones coming up against the space for a feeding trough. One point of interest is the cast of a broken rotary quern stone. The original, which was recycled as a lower floor surface, is made from felsite, the type of stone around Tinto Hill 12 miles to the north. It has been removed to the museum at Biggar.
Building 11
This house-byre measures 16m by 4.3m internally and is one of the few buildings that appear to have been used for the same purpose throughout its history. The byre end is shown by the open drain, as usual, at the lower end of the building. Evidence of a timber partition between the byre and the house was found and in this case the building was split equally between people and animals. The house raised by successive layers of burnt material and clayey gravel. Here there were three fireplaces. One stone hearth was built almost immediately above another, in a central position in the room, only a thin layer of bright red ash separating the two. One interpretation for this is that a new group of occupants, having no idea of the existence of a stone hearth, built another one above the burnt floor surface. Eventually this hearth seems to have disappeared beneath the floor and from sight, and a third one was created, higher again and nearer the east gable wall. After this, the small chamber at that end was made, the new wall being partially built over the latest fireplace which must have continued in use since the wall stones were discoloured by heat. The tiny chamber had a drain cut into the floor. This was covered with slates but its function is unknown, although it was evidently intended to be a dry area and could have been used for storage.
In the south-east corner of the byre, two Continental silver dollars were found. One, a thaler, was issued in Cologne in 1610 by the Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolph 11, and the other, a Dutch rijksdaaler, came from Zeeland in Holland sometime after 1606 (D. Bateson, pers Comm). These coins and an Elizabeth of England hoard of sixpences found near the bastle house are good evidence of a cash economy operating in rural Scotland in early 17th century.
Outside the eastern end of the building, another stone floor surface has been laid incorporating an open drain. No evidence for walls was found and it must be concluded that this was either another byre in the making or the floor of a building which had been totally destroyed. It appeared to be secondary to the main building.
