General view of steading from SE. Digital image of C 78238

Description General view of steading from SE. Digital image of C 78238

Date 8/8/1996

Collection Scottish Farm Buildings Survey

Catalogue Number SC 738982

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of C 78238

Scope and Content Tresness Farm, Sanday, Orkney Islands, from south-east Tresness is a 19th-century stone steading on Sanday, one of the largest of the Orkney Islands, and some 38.6km north-east of Kirkwall. Sanday is low-lying and almost treeless with fertile soils. Tresness was a mixed arable and livestock farm. Its steadings ceased to be used as a working farm in the 1950s. This shows the steading, mostly empty and partly ruinous. The farmhouse is still in use, now as a holiday cottage. The octagonal building (left) at the back of the two-storeyed threshing barn is a horse gang or horse engine house. Its pyramidal roof is different from the more common conical type found on Orkney. Horses, yoked in pairs, walked round and round the engine house providing the power which drove the original threshing machine in the barn. A young person was usually put in charge of the horses which had to walk at an even pace to avoid damaging the machinery of the mill and keep it working efficiently. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/738982

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap