Archaeology Notes

Event ID 741174

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/741174

NG20NE 26 27846 05528

Coroghon Barn was built in the late eighteenth century and occupies a sloping site above Coroghon Bay. It is a two-storey rectangular building of random rubble construction with rubble dressings and a slated roof. The lower floor is cobbled and divided into two compartments, the larger to the SE, where there are drains running transversely from each of its three door openings. These are entered from the main SW-facing elevation, which is supported by three buttresses, presumably of later date. The upper storey is similarly subdivided and has a doorway at ground-level, located centrally on the rear NE-facing elevation, allowing access to the larger of the two compartments; this compartment has at least five slit-vents, two of which have been enlarged to form windows, and one of which is central to the SE gable. Access to the smaller compartment of the upper storey was by way of an external stair leading to a central door in the NW gable; this has a chimney stack, and a blocked fireplace is visible in the SW corner of the compartment. The barn, and a roofed building aligned from N to S to the SE, are depicted at roughly this location on an estate map of 1805, while the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map shows four roofed buildings, two adjoining enclosures and a well (Argyllshire, 1881, sheet lx).

To the N of the NW end of the barn, the wall of a rectangular building can be seen incorporated in the line of a modern field wall (NG 2783 0550). The building lay on the N side of the modern wall, and is visible in the field as a rubble platform measuring at least 5.2m from NNE to SSW by 5.1m transversely overall. The remains of another possible building to the SSE is suggested by a further straight line joint in the modern field wall.

On the shore above Coroghon Bay, some 22m to the SW of the E end of the barn, a small rectangular structure abuts the S face of a plantation wall (NG 2784 0554). It has mortared rubble walls, plastered internally, and measures 1.8m from NE to SW by 1.55m transversely within a wall 0.6m in thickness and 1m in height.

(Canna 648-9)

Visited by RCAHMS (ARG), 7 April 1995.