Kielder Dwelling

Kielder dwelling

Lewisburn / Sheiling

Peel

Sheepfolds

Burial mound

Deserted village

Lewisburn

Shieling : (Scottish Gaelic: àirigh, Cornish: havos), also spelt sheiling, sheeling, and shealing, is a hut, or collection of huts, once common in a wild or lonely place in the hills and mountains of Scotland and northern England. The word also refers to a mountain pasture used for the grazing of cattle in summer.

Farmers and their families lived in shielings during the summer to have their livestock graze common land. Shielings were therefore associated with the transhumance system of agriculture. The mountain huts generally fell out of use by the end of the 17th century, although in remote areas this system continued into the 18th.

Ruins of shielings are abundant in high or marginal land in Scotland and Northern England, along with "shield" place-names or their Gaelic equivalents. Some were constructed of turf and tend to gradually erode and disappear but traces of stone-built structures persist. The few archaeological investigations of shielings which have been published reveal very few finds to enable accurate dating, but shielings can sometimes be shown to be mediaeval in origin and were occasionally occupied permanently after abandonment of the transhumance system.