Field Visit
Date September 1988
Event ID 1082594
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1082594
This cottage is situated to the E of the A83, the former military road, on the NW shore of Loch Shira, an inlet of Loch Fyne, 300m NE of Kilmalieu burial-ground (No. 65). Freshwater springs at the shore attract salmon waiting to run up the River Shira, and the 'fishing of Portinstonich near the Kirk of Kilmalew' was one of the pertinents of the Argyll estate in 1596 (en.1). The fishing was attached to the adjacent township of Coulfuckan, which paid its rent partly in salmon, and in 1694 a tenant was paid for his 'boat and nett to the salmond fishing' (en.2). The cottage does not appear in 18th century estate-maps, and it is probable that a payment to Dugald MacKellar in 1799 (en.3) was for erecting the existing building, which is still occupied by the Argyll estate salmon-fisherman (en.4).
The cottage is built into a bank above the shore, from which there is access by two segmental-arched openings into unvaulted cellars. It measures llm by 6m over 0.7m walls, and against the NE gable there is a massive stepped chimneystack, 4m wide and originally l.7m long, which was extended by Im about 1950 to include a bathroom. The masonry is of harled and whitewashed rubble, with granite quoins, and the roof, formerly thatched, is now slated, with sprocketed eaves. In addition to the NE gable chimneystack, a second chimneys tack rises above an internal wall, while the SW end of the roof is hipped. Most of the windows on the main level have been enlarged, but the SW window in the NW wall and the central window in the SE wall are probably unaltered. The entrance-doorway in the NW wall is enclosed in an added timber porch.
The interior of the upper floor contains at the SW end a modernised sitting-room, separated by a massive flue-bearing wall from a bed-closet which is entered from the adjacent kitchen. The NE gable-wall of the kitchen incorporates a segmental arch with round-arrised jambs, 3.lm in span and 2.lm high, whose voussoirs appear to be of rough schist below thick plaster. Within the arch is a brick-built chimneystack about 1m square, which until the removal of the lower part of the NE wall of the chimneybreast was enclosed on three sides by a narrow passage, lit at NW and SE by slit-windows and entered by doors in the arch. The roof of this passage is composed partly of corbelled stone and partly of inclined slates, thickly coated in plaster, resting against the central stack. It is probable that this area was used for kippering salmon, although it has also been suggested that the chimneybreast belongs to the tradition of ingleneuk hearths common in other parts of Scotland (en.5). In the entrance-lobby an almost vertical timber stair leads to an L-shaped loft-bedroom above the kitchen and bed-closet, lit by a skylight.
The two cellars, each entered by an archway 2.lm wide, are separated by the flue-bearing wall, which appears to have had openings at each end. The larger NE room is the fish-cellar, floored with schist slabs and lined on two sides with a leadlined shelf for inspecting and grading the salmon (en.6*). The SW cellar, now used as a henhouse, was formerly a byre, and retains a cobbled floor with a transverse slab-lined drain.
The triangular area of shore E of the cottage is protected by a breakwater of battered masonry surmounted by a course of massive boulders (B on fig.). Against its inner face there is a boiler (C) where hot water was mixed with cutch, a resin introduced in the 19th century to replace oak-bark as a preservative for nets, and alongside the boiler is a massive iron cauldron (D) in which the nets were steeped in the cutch liquid. The net-drying frame (E) is situated on the shore 25m to the NNE, with a timber boatshed (F) and bothy or store (G) higher up the shore to the N (en.7*).
A narrow timber jetty (H) extends about 20m beyond low water mark. In the method of fishing employed until recently, a wing-net was stretched from a stake or 'net-pin' on the shore (I) to a marker buoy near the end of the jetty, from which the main bag net was set parallel to the shore, and at a signal from the fisherman in a boat, a second wing-net was hauled in to close the net, at first by hand and latterly by a winch (K).
RCAHMS 1992, visited September 1988
