Kilbride, Farmhouse

RCAHMS surveyed Kilbride farmhouse on 13 July 1984 with plane-table and alidade producing at a phased plan, section and south elevation a scale of 1:100 and a cruck detail at a scale of 1:20. The plan, elevation, section were redrawn in ink and published at a scale of 1:250 (RCAHMS 1992, 340A).

This small tacksman's house is situated in a sheltered hollow W of the valley of the Barbreck River and 0.75km NW of Turnalt (No. 183). Kilbride is recorded as a property of the MacIver Campbell family of Asknish in 1582 (en.1), and remained in their possession until the early 20th century. The house was built or remodelled in 1746 and extended to the NE by one bay in the early 19th century. A steading range abutting this extension at right angles is of 19th-century date. Later additions to the NW have recently been removed, as part of a programme of restoration.

The original house is of two low storeys, possibly heightened from one storey (infra), and measures 14.4m by 6.2m over walls varying from 0.7m to 1.1m in thickness. Its masonry is of mortared rubble, harled and whitewashed, and the roof is slated; a massive plinth at the base of the walls appears to be of recent construction. The SE front is symmetrical, having two small windows at each level and a central doorway, while in the NW wall there are three ground- floor windows of varying size but no first-floor openings. All of the ground-floor windows have schist sills and lintels which retain sockets for diagonally-set square metal stanchions. The entrance-door has been remodelled, but above it there is a sandstone panel within a roll-moulded frame, which bears the date 1746 and a reversed monogram of the initials AC, probably for Alexander Campbell of Kilbride (d. c. 1772), the younger brother of Angus Campbell of Asknish (en.2*).

The upper storey is so low that the lintels of the two windows in the SE wall are formed by the wall plate of the roof, which incorporates three modern skylights. The gables terminate in chimneystacks with slab copings and projecting courses 0.4m above slate-level at front and back, and this feature may indicate that the roof was originally thatched. Internally the house has been completely remodelled during the 20th century, and two doorways into the later extension had been driven through the NW wall. The only indication of the earlier arrangement is afforded by the two windows, one extremely small, towards the centre of the NW wall, which were probably designed to light closets behind or beneath a timber staircase.

During recent alterations a series of wall-posts for scarf-jointed cruck-couples was exposed, three posts (of an original four) in the SE wall and one corresponding post in the NW wall. These lower members began about 0.6m aboveground level and were about 2.lm in height, incorporating pegged joints. The sawn-off upper members intruded into the first-floor space, and it is probable that the wall-head has been raised, possibly in 1746, although no structural evidence of this has been exposed in the side-walls or gables.

The early 19th-century extension to the NE replaces an earlier single-storeyed one whose roof-raggle was exposed in 1987 in the outer NE gable of the original building. In its present form it is 5.2m long and corresponds in width to the original block. In the SE wall it has a doorway, whose SW jamb utilises the angle of the older building, and one window at each level. Immediately inside the doorway, driven into the NE gable of the 1746 house, there was a deep cupboard, probably marking the position of a communicating doorway which has been re-opened during the recent restoration (en.3*).

RCAHMS 1992, visited July 1988