Archaeology Notes

Event ID 779623

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/779623

NG82NW 42.00 centred 80589 28287

NG82NW 42.01 NG 80589 28251 Ice House

NG 780 300 (centre) In the springs of 1995 and 1996 a field survey was carried out on the NTS Balmacara Estate. The estate covers approximately 22.5 sqkm of the Lochalsh peninsula. It lies largely within the points of a triangle formed by Kyle in the SW, Plockton in the N and Balmacara in the SE. The range of topographic variation found within the estate largely reflects that found on the W coast of Scotland generally. The range of sites found during the survey reflects this topographic variation.

During two seasons of survey 109 new sites were recorded. A full report is lodged with the NMRS.

1995

NG 8058 2827 Concrete well head

Sponsors: National Trust for Scotland, Historic Scotland

M Wildgoose 1996.

NG 8062 2829 A standing building survey was completed by Kirkdale Archaeology at Balmacara Square, an 18th-19th-century steading complex, in January 1997, and a further contour survey and survey of the associated mill, cottages and ?ice house was completed in September 1997.

The initial standing building survey revealed the multi-phased nature of the steading. The earliest elements were erected in the final quarter of the 18th century, when the estates of Balmacara had been returned to the newly created Lord Seaforth. There followed a succession of owners, each of whom added further elements to the steading, the most important of which was the Italianate tower added in the 1820s by Sir Hugh Innes. The steading complex also included a threshing mill, served by an artificially enhanced mill pond and stone-lined lades, and a range of two cottages housing a ploughman and shepherd.

Sponsor: National Trust for Scotland

G Ewart and A Dunn 1997.

NG 806 283 The excavation and recording of the steadings at Balmacara Square was brought about by the National Trust for Scotland's plan to convert the now dilapidated buildings into houses and offices.

A total of 26 trenches were excavated between August and September 1998. The excavations were designed to solve dating and construction sequence questions raised by a buildings survey carried out by Kirkdale Archaeology in the spring of 1997 (Ewart and Dunn 1997). The excavations revealed that the steadings had been constructed in the latter half of the 18th century and had undergone three major periods of expansion and one period of contraction before they reached their present state.

Excavations were also carried out in the (now empty) mill pond which lies to the NE of the steadings. This revealed that the pond had been excavated, and the dam raised, in the middle of the 19th century. The mill pond had then gradually silted up over a period of 60 years, culminating with the abandonment of the nearby mill, the mill pond and its related lade system in the first quarter of the 20th century. The dam was breached and the pond drained in the 1970s.

Reports are lodged with Highland SMR and the NMRS.

Sponsor: National Trust for Scotland

M Wildgoose 1999.

A watching brief was carried out during the stripping out and refurbishment of the farm steading at Balmacara Square during the summer of 2000. Finds, again, proved to be almost totally absent. The mill pond however proved more productive with upwards of 200 sherds of pottery and glass recovered. The majority of the finds related to the Commercial Bank of Scotland (ink wells and bottles) which stood across the road, on the north-east side of the square. All the finds from the excavation of the mill pond, post date its construction (1840's).

Perhaps the most important find of the watching brief, was the recovery of the five lithics from the stream grave's. These lithics indicate the presence of an early prehistoric site at some point upstream from the mill pond. Lithic scatters are extremely rare in this area.

M Wildgoose 2001.