Canna, Tarbert

NG20NW 23 centred 2407 0559

(Classified as Deserted Township and location cited as NG 240 055). A map of 1805 shows eleven houses at Tarbert. They stood in the field named Na h-Athannan, 'the Kilns'.

J L Campbell 1984.

(Classification amended to township and location to centred NG 2407 0559). Within the field between the foot of Creag a-Chairn and the burn gully draining the improved ground at the Tarbert isthmus, the remains of a township comprising no less than nine rectangular buildings can still be seen, together with one subsquare peaty mound, three enclosures and a cluster of field clearance heaps (NG20NW 131.02). Of the buildings, most have been reduced to little more than stone footings, but one appears to have been of turf and survives only as a low grass-grown mound. With the exception of a large building incorporated into the modern field-wall, they range in overall size from 6.1m by 4.5m to 12.9m by 5.2m. This large building, which comprises three compartments and has been remodelled on numerous occasions, measures 25.4m by 5.3m over coursed rubble walls. It overlies an earlier building belonging to the township (NG 2409 0558) and is shown roofed on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Argyllshire, sheet lix, 1881) by which time the rest of the township had been abandoned. There are traces of an enclosure wall extending from its SE corner on the opposite side of the field-wall, defining an area at the foot of the scree-slope that has been cleared of stone. The only other structure recorded on this side of the wall is a small pen formed by two large boulders at the foot of the scree-slope (NG 2412 0557). The remaining two enclosures both lie on the E edge of the burn gully and are D-shaped (NG 2399 0555 and NG 2405 0551). The cluster of clearance heaps lies to the S of the township and may be of considerably earlier date. At least twenty four are visible, measuring between 2m and 4m in diameter, and there are also three linear heaps forming low stony banks.

The township is depicted on an estate map of 1805 as a group of nine buildings, one with an adjoining enclosure. This latter roughly coincides with the large building incorporated into the modern field-wall, but it is impossible to be certain that they are one and the same. A track is shown leading into the group from the W, traces of which can still be seen, and at the point where the track crosses the gully, a further two buildings are depicted. The township was cleared of tenants in the mid-nineteenth century by Donald MacNeill II.

(Canna 142, 252-62, 264-5).

Visited by RCAHMS (IMS, ARG), 5 June 1994.

J L Campbell 1984.