Archaeology Notes

Event ID 823960

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/823960

NH74SW 1 73331 44842

For Culloden Moor, Battlefield (centred NH 742 450), see NH74NW 17.00.

(NH 7333 4484) King's Stables (NAT)

OS 6" map, Inverness-shire, 2nd ed., (1906)

These houses are spoken of as the 'Kings Stable'.

Name Book 1871.

On the north side of the road at the lay-by at NH 7335 4480 is a granite stone inscribed 'Kings Stables. Station of English Cavalry after the Battle of Culloden' At NH 7333 4484 is a small turf-roof building believed to have been used as a billet by the English Cavalry. This building is to be restored by the National Trust next year. It is possible that the name Stable Hollow refers to where the horses were actually held.

Visited by OS (W D J) 24 April 1962; Information from Mr N MacDonald, Warden, National Trust for Scotland, Culloden.

NH 733 448 A T-plan croft house forming part of the 1746 battlefield site, King's Stable Cottage was so named following the stabling of Hanoverian horse nearby in the aftermath of the battle. A detailed fabric analysis and measured survey in December 1998 revealed that the majority of the standing masonry fabric and most of its principal features survive from the original structure.

The structure was found to very closely resemble Old Leanach (NMRS NW74SW 21), a much-altered cruck-framed croft house that now forms part of the battlefield centre nearby. Its masonry is clay-bonded although possibly pointed in lime mortar. King's Stables Cottage appears to be the better preserved in terms of its original plan form which is of a single phase of work. The principal range was accessed from a single entrance to the SE. The jamb forming the 'stalk' of the 'T' may have contained a box bed arrangement. A narrow opening at the re-entrant of the jamb and the principal range was considered to represent a partly concealed defensive feature, providing a protected field of fire over the approach to the sole entrance - an arrangement paralleled at Old Leanach.

In conjunction with historical work the original structure was considered likely to have pre-dated the 1746 battle, perhaps having been built in the early part of the 18th century. The structure may also be that described in 1748: '12 wounded men [Jacobites] were carried out of this house and shot in a hollow...'

One early alteration, an inserted fire stack, and two subsequent restorations were in evidence. Of the latter, the first, in the 1920s by the Gaelic Society of Inverness, consisted of the alteration of the original windows, the clay-capping of the partially reconstructed wallheads and the construction of the existing turf gables. The latter probably broadly reproduced the original arrangement. The second restoration, by the National Trust for Scotland in c 1963, included a wholesale replacement of the roof structure (at a considerably lower pitch than previously), partial reconstruction of the turf gables, various masonry repairs and repointing with cement, and a new concrete floor.

Sponsor: National Trust for Scotland.

T Addyman 2000