Standing Building Recording

Date 4 July 2011 - 6 July 2011

Event ID 964743

Category Recording

Type Standing Building Recording

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/964743

HY 47791 29239 An assessment and historic building survey was undertaken in September 2009 in advance of conservation repairs. A series of small evaluations, monitoring work and an enhancement of the drawn record was carried out 4–6 July 2011.

Howan was probably an important settlement prior to the 17th century and it was speculated that the rising ground immediately to the S may have been a favourable location for a broch, though nothing now exists above ground. Any building may have presented a convenient source of stone for the later settlement. The possible site of a medieval episcopal residence, Howan is also the only settlement other than St Magnus’ church to appear on earlier maps of the island.

Today the Howan settlement consists of a crow-stepped principal house of 2.5-storeys and of T-plan form (with a jamb (wing) running to the S), a 1.5-storeyed range running off its E gable wall, and the remains of a further building, occupying the NE angle of an associated former courtyard. The main house and its southwards-running stair jamb were found to be largely of 17th-century date. From this period there survives an elaborately carved lintel over the internal entrance into the jamb (dated 1681), a moulded fireplace surround in the W ground floor room, and a further lintel reset into the E gable wall; the latter is now much eroded but bore an armorial of the Douglas family. The whole structure was very extensively remodelled in the later 18th century, including the wholesale rebuilding of the E gable of the main house. The well preserved interiors at first floor level date from this time, as does most of the woodwork in the building. The substantial stair within the jamb was also reversed at this stage and the jamb itself remodelled with a cat-slide roof. The site lay unoccupied and abandoned for much of the 20th century.

The E gable of the eastwards-running wing, which is crow-stepped, appears to be largely of 17th-century date; however the side walls of this wing were almost wholly rebuilt, possibly in the 19th century. The building to the NE had also been detailed with crow-stepped gables though these were subsequently reduced in the 20th century. The wall closing off the E side of the flagged courtyard area is of considerable structural complexity and perhaps contains some of the earliest fabric remaining at the site; it was considered possible that this represented the rear (E) wall of a pre-existing range. In the mid-point of the N elevation of the main house a projecting pier represents the only in situ remains of an arched courtyard entrance, whose dressings are detailed with a quirked roll. Many further dressings from the feature were recovered from around the site.

The 2011 investigations included monitoring the stripping of the interior of the main house. Nine small exploratory trenches were dug in advance of general service trenching, general ground reductions took place externally and there was floor reduction within the main house. The drawn record of the building was extended to the upstanding walling bounding the E side of the courtyard prior to the removal of collapsing masonry. The only significant archaeological feature recorded in the trenches was the foundation of the demolished frontage (W-facing wall) to the former range, which closed off the E side of the courtyard This range was possibly secondary to the surviving remains of the N and SE ranges (both probably of 17th-century date).

Archive: RCAHMS

Funder: Private clients

Addyman Archaeology, 2011