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Several enclosures are visible as clear cropmarks in a field to the northwest of Monboddo House. There is a very regular circular enclosure ditch surrounding a substantial rectangular cropmark, but the regularity of shape presents difficulty in ascertaining a date to them. It was suggested that they represent the remains of either a timber hall of Neolithic date, similar to ones found on Deeside at Balbridie and Warren Field, Crathes, or an Early Medieval building similar to one found at the Craw Stane, Rhynie. However the 1st Edition Ordnance Survey map shows a roughly circular plantation in this position known as Barn Knap, making the feature more likely 19th Century in date. Whilst the map shows no rectangular features corresponding to the cropmarks the results of trial trenching by University of Aberdeen 2012 indicate that the building is most likely to be a post-medieval barn within a plantation bank. Adjacent to this lies a large circular enclosure, with a series of pits within it, and also a ring ditch. These cropmarks may represent an earlier prehistoric settlement in the same field.
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Historic Environment Records (HER)