Archaeology Notes

Event ID 824093

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/824093

ND24SE 38 29916 41056 and 29922 41049

The ruins of this farmstead, which comprise a single rectangular range, are situated in open moorland about 400m W of the abandoned farmstead of Warehouse (ND34SW 100). The range, which has been set on a slope falling gently from E to W, measures 27.5m from ENE to WSW by 3.3m transversely within clay-bonded walls 0.8m in thickness and up to 1.8m in height. The interior contains five compartments, but the westernmost has been reduced to footings only 0.2m in height. All the compartments are interconnected, save for the easternmost, which is entered by a doorway at the WSW end of the SSE wall. On the NNW side of the adjacent compartment there is a creep through the wall and the stump of what may have originally been a partition wall.

After it was abandoned as a dwelling, the building was converted into a sheep-dip. This involved extensive disruption to the three western compartments, but the walls and gables of the easternmost compartment survive intact, and a pair of dwarf walls extending inwards from the ENE gable still supports a cauldron over a fire-box, with an iron pipe as a flue. Flags that now lean against the NNW wall probably indicate how this compartment was roofed.

An enclosure lies adjacent to the S side of the range and measures about 12m from ENE to WSW by 3m transversely within a drystone wall. A branch from the trackway that passes to the W of the range runs through this enclosure from end to end. A stack stand (YARROWS04 141), measuring 2.5m in diameter and 0.4m in height, is situated immediately SE of the enclosure.

The range is depicted roofed on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Caithness 1877, sheet xxix), but it is shown unroofed on the 2nd edition of the map (Caithness 1907, sheet xxix). The range is noted in Mercer's survey as a 'Longhouse and Enclosure' (Mercer and Hill 1985, WAR 80; fig 88). Two vegetation-free segments of the rectangular enclosure wall are denoted as cairns (Mercer and Hill 1985 No.81a & b; fig 88).

(YARROWS04 120, 141)

Visited by RCAHMS (ATW, PM), 11 May 2004.