| Details |
Cropmarks of various features with a substantial area of rig and furrow overlying most of the field, mostly oriented northwest-southeast with a smaller patch to the south of the burial ground oriented west-northwest to east-northeast. Excavations in 1983 in the field west of the burial ground at Chapelton, on a site noticed from aerial survey as having cropmarks of rig and furrow cultivation and a possible enclosure. Eight trenches were cut across the cropmarks. One of the cultivation furrows was excavated within two of the trenches. In the first (tr 22) the furrow was found at the base of a deep accumulation of hillwash and had two converging sets of ploughmarks and a scatter of stones in its lower fill. Two pits, one to the southeast and another on the furrow base were probably medieval. The second trench (26) discovered that the furrow cut the site of a backfilled kiln and also did not respect the enclosure ditch. Five sherds of medieval pottery were recovered, probably from the abandoned settlement. An enclosure ditch was discovered in five of the trenches, a length of 28m in total, varying in depth from 0.6-0.9m in depth. One piece of early pottery was associated with this enclosure. Otherwise finds were from the gradual infilling of the ditch, with glazed pottery, charcoal-flecked soil, calcined bone and a rolled bronze sheet. A wide pennanular cropmark was discovered to be a collection of stone-lined kilns with flues. Kilns 2-4 had oval bowls 1.5m across, no 2 being the earliest, it showed signs of repairs and one of these had used dressed sandstone blocks from a building of architectural pretension. Kiln 1, the smallest, had a bowl 0.5m across, again looted stonework was used in the construction. Evidence of the last firing of grain (all wheat) was found. Kiln 4 had postholes beneath the passage walls, possibly from supporting timberwork covered when the passage partially collapsed when they rotted away. The above ground structures of the kilns appear to have been dismantled. The robbed stone work is of red sandstone and comprises six stones of an (eight-stone) simple archway, one with a mason's mark, and various wall stones and a roof-tile, probably from a simple chapel (perhaps Kynblathmund as Chapelton's chapel was apparently not dismantled until the late 16th century). The kilns are assumed to be medieval because of a dearth of post-medieval finds associated with them. The suspicion is that the settlement associated with these features is obscured beneath the deep hillwash to the east of the kilns. This site would have been of relatively high status because of its chapel and kilns and lay about mid-way between the burghs of Abroath and Brechin.
|
Historic Environment Records (HER) 
Angus
HER -
NO64NW0060 - CHAPELTON