32989: TEAMPULL VALTOS, LEWIS – SOUTERRAIN (Undated)

Summary:

SOUTERRAIN (Undated)
Souterrain

Location:

NB 08872 36718

Full description:

NB03NE 7 088 367.

(Area: NB 088 367) An earth-house was exposed by wind erosion and subsequently re-covered by drifting sand, about 1914, in a hollow about 80 yards west of the burial ground at Valtos and about 500 yards NNE of Valtos school at an elevation of about 200′ a.s.l.
Mackenzie (A J MacKenzie, Uig Lodge), who saw the earth-house, reported that one of the roof slabs had been removed and it had been entered about 9′ west of the entrance. It ran WNW-ESE and there was a dip in the roof in the former direction.
‘Some 20′ south of the entrance is a heap of fine fractured stones with a quantity of comminuted bones beside it. A few feet west from this was a circular setting of stones possibly a hut-circle. Small fragments of coarse pottery were still in evidence when the site was visited’.
RCAHMS 1928, visited 1914.

This earth-house was found at the cemetery gate.
Information contained in letter from A MacKenzie (MoPBW) to OPS 15 August 1967.

Mr MacKenzie is deceased. There is no local knowledge of the exact site of this souterrain. There are two gates, one in the NW wall of the cemetery and one to the NW in the roadside fence where the cemetery track joins the road. Neither fits the RCAHMS description.
Visited by OS 27 June 1969.

no.11
A souterrain was exposed by sand movement and subsequently covered over c. 1914. Contradictory locational information is recorded and the site cannot now be located.
Armit 1992, 43

References:

RCAHMCS. 1928. The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments and Constructions of Scotland. Ninth report with inventory of monuments and constructions in the Outer Hebrides, Skye and the Small Isles, Publisher: HMSO The RCAHMS 9th Report and Inventory: Outer Hebrides, Skye and the Small Isles. 29, No. 96
Ian Armit. 1992. CFA, University of Edinburgh Archaeological Field Survey of the Bhaltos (Valtos) Peninsula, Lewis.
1994. ‘Archaeological field survey of the Bhaltos (Valtos) peninsula, Lewis’, Proc Soc Antiq Scot. Part No 124. No.11, 80, 81

Acknowledgement:

Information provided by Western Isles Council Sites & Monuments Record, January 2006.