Field Visit

Date 12 May 1915

Event ID 1104693

Category Recording

Type Field Visit

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1104693

RCAHMS Inventory: Outer Hebrides, Skye and the Small Isles.

Earth-house, Claigan.

On the slope of the hill, some 550 yards east by south of Claigan Farmhouse, where there is a stretch of fairly level ground, at an elevation of nearly 250 feet above sea-level, is an earth-house which, though partly destroyed, is in a better state of preservation than most of the structures of this class in the Isle of Skye. It consists of a long narrow gallery running in a north-easterly direction (260° mag.), and 1 foot below the surface of the ground for a distance of 36 feet where the passage is blocked by debris. The entrance is dilapidated and measures 2 feet 5 inches in width. For a distance of about 9 feet the floor is nearly level, and at this place the gallery widens to about 3 feet 3 inches, the height being some 3 feet 5 inches. There is a rise in the floor towards the inner end, and the chamber gradually narrows to a width of 2 feet 2 inches. The walls are built of rough drystone building, and the roof is formed by stone lintels. A number of the side stones have been removed and the cavities thus formed have somewhat the appearance of boles or recesses, but only four of them, three on the south wall and one on the opposite wall, seem to have been built when the earthhouse was constructed. These are placed about half-way along the passage, on the floor level, and measure from 12 inches to 18 inches in height and from 13 inches to 16 inches in breadth. Farther up the hill than the present blocked end of the earth-house is a hollow with blocks of stone appearing above the soil around its margin. This might be the terminal chamber of the earth-house, but there are remains of old houses and enclosure walls in the neighbourhood, and this feature may have been connected with them.

RCAHMS 1928, visited 12 May 1915.

OS map: Skye xv (unnoted).