Publication Account
Date 1996
Event ID 1016294
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1016294
This ruined building is thought to be the oldest two-storey house in Orkney, for its existence is recorded in 1601. It is a plain stone structure with crowstepped gables and double-splayed windows. There were two rooms on the ground floor, separated by a cross-passage, and a stair led from one of them to the two rooms on the upper floor. As at Corrigall (no. 23), the dwelling ho use was separate from its outbuildings, here consisting of a barn with a corn-kiln and a by relying alongside the house. The term taft or toft means simply a house and its immediate surroundings, and this building was once the principal house in the crofting township of Quandale. Although Tafts was renovated in the early 19th century, all sixteen households in the township were cleared to make way for sheep in 1845, the worst example of total clearance in the name of ' improvement ' that Orkney suffered.
Some 400m to the south-south-east at HY 374321, there is a well-preserved example of a crescentic burnt mound (see chapter 8); excavation has revealed a rectangular stone setting.
Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: Orkney’, (1996).
