Liddesdale, Storehouse

In about 1730 the Morvern Company, formed to exploit the deposits of lead and copper recently discovered by Sir Alexander Murray of Stanhope, erected its terminal buildings at Liddesdale on the S shore of Loch Sunart, some 6 km NE of the lead-mine at Lurga (RCAHMS 1980, No. 387). The buildings were illustrated and described in the letter-press of Alexander Bruce's Plan of Loch Sunart, published in 1733, as follows: 'They (the company) have built a handsome dwelling house for their Manager, Clerks and Office att Liedgesdale, besides a Key with a compleat Storehouse, upon it, two Warehouses, Lodging houses for workmen, two large Stables and as many Barns, a Malt Kiln, a Smith's shop and Workhouse'. The mining company was short-lived, and in about 1754 the Argyll estate converted a 'slated store house' into a dwelling for the tacksman of Liddesdale. This may be the building described below.

The only survivor of the extensive group of buildings shown in Bruce's plan is the ruinous storehouse, an elongated rectangular structure comprising two storeys and garret, which stands close to the foreshore. The site of the quay is marked by a kerb of massive boulders some 4.8 m from the NW wall of the storehouse. The building is constructed of random-rubble masonry, much of it granite that was probably quarried on the shore some 10 m to the E, where evidence of drilling is visible. Several of the window and door-openings are spanned internally by timber lintels which include stop-chamfered beams in secondary use. The storehouse was provided with a doorway in the SW gable-wall, now blocked, and with opposed entrances at the centres of the side-walls, the one fronting the quay being of unusual width. Although Bruce's drawing appears to show a hipped roof, the end-walls rise to steeply pitched gables terminating in chimney-stacks, of which that to the NE gable is a dummy. Internally the arrangement is not altogether clear, owing to the poor preservation of the building at first-floor level. It appears that the entire ground-floor was utilized for storage, along with the NE portion of the floor above; a socket in the NE wall probably carried an axial beam supporting the first floor in that area. The SW apartment at first floor level was served by a gable-fireplace, apparently an original provision, and was probably used for residential purposes. An inserted partition-wall at this end of the building may have been constructed to support a staircase in the tacksman’s house of 1754. The garret was lit by windows in each gable-wall, but was not provided with fireplaces.

About 25 m. SE of the storehouse there are slight remains of a kiln, perhaps the 'malt kiln' described in Bruce's plan.

RCAHMS 1980, visited July 1972