Skye, Upper Halistra

NG25NW 1 245 595.

(NB This township falls on 4 mapsheets, but one number has been applied to the whole site)

Area: NG 243 599: Alongside, and to the NE of the road from Upper Hallistra to Trumpan, there is an extensive area of depopulation. It comprises a large number of houses with outbuildings and enclosures, the whole surrounded by extensive lazy-bed cultivation. (Visible on RAF air photographs CPE/Scot/UK 372: 4249-50)

Visited by OS (AC) 14 May 1961.

NG25NW 1.01 245 597.

The township of Halistra comprises 99 buildings and at least 19 small enclosures scattered over a distance of 900m (NG 247 597 to 237 601) along the lower terraces of the SW slope of Ben Halistra, immediately NE of the public road to Trumpan. There is no clear lay-out, core or plan to the settlement and there is little juxtaposition of farmstead one with another, with two major gaps of 180m and 80m respectively between various parts of the settlement.

The township comprises more than 18 units or farmsteads defined primarily by the presence of small enclosures or gardens, often sub-rectangular in shape and built-up with soil on the inside (eg 568), adjacent or attached to which is at least one long building of more than about 10m in length as well as one or more subsidiary buildings. There are three corn-drying kilns, which are built as small platforms into the corners of subsidiary buildings (5, 14, 81).

Some 28 buildings displayed visible sub-division of which two had three compartments and the rest two. Most buildings are constructed across the slope, and only 14 are terraced, one of which is atypically cut sideways to the slope (38). Entrances are generally in the lower end-wall and several were to one end of a side wall. The walls are constructed of a face of boulders infilled by a core of earth-bonded rubble. The corners are rounded, verging on the round-ended on occasion, although a few are squared. The best preserved buildings stand to a height of 1.2m and the walls show signs of narrowing towards the top from a base of up to 1.8m in thickness, although the majority fall in the range 0.9-1.6m. The buildings vary in length from 3.4m to 22.8m, of which only four exceed 16m, and in breadth from 2.5m to 4.5m. There are signs of phasing or sequence in many of the farmsteads in the form of buildings reduced to platforms or cut away in the construction of new structures (eg platform 82 cut by building 7).

(WAT90 1-63, 80-103, 142, 179-183, 460-484, 568, 592).

Visited by RCAHMS (PJD) 1 October 1990.

The farm of 'Halleista' is first documented in a MacLeod estate rental of 1683, which lists ten tenants with varying payments (R C MacLeod 1928 Vol.I). The population of Halistra in 1788 was 127, comprising 24 married couples, 28 other adults, 46 children and 5 elderly (SRO GD 9/3 Abstract Minutes of the British Fisheries Society, 1786-8, p209). The exact date of clearance has not been established, but probably occurred after Waternish was alienated to a Mr James Shaw in 1796 (R C MacLeod 1929 Vol.II) and certainly prior to the 1st edition of the Ordnance Survey map of 1880 (Island of Skye &c., Inverness-shire 1880, sheet ix). The boundaries of the township are defined on the SE by the Allt na Luinge and on the NW by an unnamed burn, which runs around the S end of Cnoc an Chatha. On the landward or E side there is a sequence of boundaries, pushing up on to Ben Halistra (NG25NW 1.10). The crofting township of Lower Halistra was carved out of Halistra between the Trumpan road and the sea and is discussed elsewhere (NG25NW 9). The area so defined includes within it the remains of an extensive fermtoun, four dispersed farmsteads, three shieling groups, nine hut-circles and a number of miscellaneous huts and pens all distributed within areas of lazy-bedding and globular shaped enclosures.

(Numbers in brackets apply to Dbase disc references)

1.01 NG 245 597 Township (1-63, 80-103, 142, (NG26NW) 179-183, 460-484, 568, 592)

1.02 NG 240 600 Shieling-huts (564-567) (NG26SW)

1.03 NG 2425 6027 Hut-circle (569) (NG26SW)

1.04 NG 2430 6030 Farmstead (570-571, 573) (NG26SW)

1.05 NG 2415 6063 Hut-circle (572) (NG26SW)

1.06 NG 2444 6054 Farmstead (574-576) (NG26SW)

1.07 NG 243 600 Cultivation Remains; Field-systems;

Boundaries (NG26SW)

1.08 NG 2582 5981 Hut-circle (1308) (NG25NE)

1.09 NG 2487 6070 Shieling-mound; Pen (NG26SW)

1.10 NG 24 60 Boundary Banks (NG26SW)

NG 25 60

1.11 NG 2485 6051 Farmstead (581-584) (NG26SW)

1.12 NG 248 605 Shieling-mounds (585-588) (NG26SW)

1.13 NG 2472 6043 Pen (589) (NG26SW)

1.14 NG 2491 6041 Pen (590) (NG26SW)

1.15 NG 2491 6025 Hut-circle (591) (NG26SW)

1.16 NG 254 602 Shieling-huts (979-982, 992) (NG26SE)

1.17 NG 253 601 Shileing-mounds (983-991) (NG26SE)

1.18 NG 2517 6016 Building; Enclosure (993-994) (NG26SE)

1.19 NG 2517 6011 Hut-circle (995) (NG26SE)

1.20 NG 2510 6009 Hut-circles (996-7) (NG26SE)

1.21 NG 2475 5958 Hut (76) (NG25NW)

1.22 NG 2502 6010 Hut-circle (998) (NG26SE)

1.23 NG 2522 6011 Structure (999) (NG26SE)

1.24 NG 2571 6006 Hut-circle (1000) (NG26SE)

1.25 NG 2565 6002 Structure (1001) (NG26SE)

1.26 NG 2523 5984 Hut (1307) (NG25NE)

1.27 NG 2548 5989 Hut (1304) (NG25NE)

1.28 NG 2544 5988 Hut-circle (1305, 1306) (NG25NE)

1.29 NG 2485 5956 Corn Mill (NG25NW)

Visited by RCAHMS (PJD) 1 October 1990. (Aforrestable Land Survey Data) R C MacLeod 1928 and 1929.

A township, comprising five roofed buildings, one of which is a corn mill (see NG25NW 1.29), twenty-eight unroofed buildings and four enclosures is depicted on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Inverness-shire, Isle of Skye 1881, sheet xxxiii). Nine roofed buildings, one partially roofed buildings, twenty-four unroofed buildings and ten enclosures are shown on the current edition of the OS 1:10560 map (1965).

Information from RCAHMS (AKK) 11 November 1996.