Lazy beds
Immediately opposite the bastle house, on the other side of the burn and on the steep slop, there is a small patch of lazy beds. This is a garden area of spade cultivation, taking advantage of a steep gradient of free drainage. The soil was ridged up to form beds of deeper soil, so it is likely that some root crops were grown here, such as potatoes or kail. Lazy beds are a common feature on sites of small farms and isolated dwellings dating from the 17th to the 19th century.
Sheep buchts and field walls
Lying just to the north an up-slope from the farm, on the south facing slope of Great Hill, there is a prominent complex of turf enclosures and walls. These structures were enigmatic until local archaeologists first identified them as sheep buchts (fig. 17). Dating from the 17th century, they are open-ended pens where shepherds (or perhaps more likely the shepherd’s wife and children) once milked ewes after lambing time. This was an evening pursuit which produced cheese and butter which would be kept in wooden tubs.
Several sheep could be driven into pens through the open end and presumably a gate would then be closed to secure the animals. The buchts often have a narrow side entrance or gap in the bank, which is assumed to be for casting each ewe out after it has been milked.
Buchts are mostly seen as groups and associated with field banks and enclosures. They are often built as an integral part of a field wall, usually in the outside of the field, although isolated examples are also known. These Glenochar buchts have been built within the angle of a turf catchment wall which can be seen to run up the hill, and the turf bank which was the forerunner of the drystane dyke now surrounding the large field behind the bastle house. Cornering the flock in this way would have made controlling them much easier. Buchts were probably used for other types of handling work with sheep such as clipping and smearing fleeces. Within and above the other large dyke-enclosed field on the west side of Air Cleuch, there are further good examples of buchts and field banks.
Buchts are often confused with shielings and are still regularly described by archaeologists as such. The reason for this is that shielings and buchts were used for the same function – for obtaining ewe milk after lambing time. It was important, in the days before large scale enclosure of fields to ensure that livestock did not invade crops, be they arable or fodder such as hay. The best way was to drive animals off to summer pasture some distance from the farm. In some places, this could be several miles away, such as in the north-west of Scotland and in the Highlands. As animals had to be tended and protected, guardians, often children, would stay with the flocks and herds. Little huts, with doors, were constructed as summer abodes and butter and cheese could be made there, to be brought back to the farm periodically. This well-known system of stock control is called transhumance, and is still practiced in parts of the world today.
In most parts of the south of Scotland, the practice appears to have been different in that stock were kept at bay by turf walls which enclosed fields or at least barred the movement of animals onto crops. Sheep were milked in close proximity to the farm in open ended buchts and would then be released back to upland pastures. The barriers known as ‘head dykes’ are common to nearly every upland farm in southern Scotland, demarcating upland pasture from arable fields below.
It is inappropriate and misleading to use the term ‘shieling’ in association with buchts, a term which is still in modern use on most south of Scotland upland farms to describe nearby stone-built pens, where handling of sheep for purposes such as clipping, dipping and veterinary treatment is done.
Further research into numerous place names given as ‘bucht’ and ‘shiels’ may help to resolve the different systems used in various parts of the country. However, an excellent example in Upper Clydesdale demonstrating the correlation between site type and place name is Bucht Knowe, at Glengieth, the adjacent fermtoun to the north of Glenochar. Here, on the above named hillock, are seven sheep buchts overlooking the bastle and associated remains of Glengieth (Ward, 1944).
Fields and enclosures
Indications of turf walls can be traced around the two large fields, now enclosed by 19th-century drystane dykes. Rig and furrow cultivations is also evident within these enclosure, showing that arable farming played some part in the economy of Glenochar, although to what extent is as yet unknown. It may be possible through historical research (see below) to glean more information. Objects such as tobacco pipe bowls, pottery and bottle sherds have been found on molehills in the fields, which indicates manuring the ground from the farm byres and probably from house middens.
The prominent banked enclosure on the south side of the farm and on Doddin Hill appears to be uncultivated. The enclosing bank is constructed using stone as a foundation wall which has been topped off with turf. Such a wall would not have been required for sheep control and it is therefore likely that this enclosure was for corralling cattle in the evenings.
