Skye, Glen Claigan

Field visit, dimensioned sketch, site description and photographic survey.

Review of historic maps, printed sources and Dunvegan estate papers.

This small township, known locally and historically as Neisbost, is situated on a low coastal terrace, 30m above sea level. It comprises seven buildings and one enclosure, laid out along a field dyke which is aligned in a N-S direction along the natural terrace. The buildings range in size from 7.5m x 5m to 19m x 5.8m and appear to date from at least two different periods, some being of dry-stone construction, whilst others carry traces of lime mortar and cement. One of the buildings has been re-used as a sheepfold and dipper, and another has been re-used as a stack yard.

There are extensive lazy beds above and below the township to the NE, SW and S. A track runs down to the shore at Port Neisbost, some 250m to the N, and on it there are the remains of a small bridge. Boat nausts (NG25SW 40), fish traps (NG25SW 39, NG25SW 41) and a fullers earth quarry (NG25SW 38) at Port Neisbost have been recorded and described separately.

The township buildings are described below from N – S and these descriptions should be read in conjunction with the dimensioned sketches attached to this site record:

Structure NG2290 5299 (a stackyard or planticrub): Measures 11.5m x 7m.

House 1 NG2295 5298: Measures 13.8m x 6m, with walls 1m thick and up to 0.5m high. Formerly a dwelling but latterly used as stack yard with one stack stand made of stones robbed from the house walls.

House 2 NG2297 5297: Measures 7.5m x 5m, with walls up to 0.5m high. Situated 1.5m from House 1, in similar condition.

House 3: Measures 12m x 5.5m, with two entrances on the W side, c1m wide, but no evidence of windows. This is the best preserved structure on site and may be later than the others, the walls are 0.8m thick and have been robbed to c1m high.

House 4 NG2299 5293: Measures 10.7m x 5.2m, with walls 0.6 thick and up to 1m high. Mortar is visible in some walls and there is some cement coating on the external rear (E) wall. This building has been robbed for the conversion of the neighbouring building (House 5) into a fank and there is no evidence left of doors or windows. There is a low stone-built passageway on each side and to the rear of the building.

House 5 NG2299 5292: Measures 17m x 6m, with walls 1m thick and up to 1.6m high. Dry-stone construction with rounded corners. The building has been converted into a fank, and a sheep dip and pens been built outside its front (W) side. It has been partially roofed as an animal shelter in recent times.

House 6 NG2299 5291: Measures 19m x 5.8m, with walls 0.8 thick. The walls stand up to 1m high in the S wall, but other walls are reduced to low turf covered stone footings and there are no obvious entrances. This is the longest building on site and is situated 1m from House 5.

House 7 NG2301 5290: Measures 15m x 5.6m, with walls 0.8 thick and up to 1m high. There is an internal sub-division in the S end of the building and the poorly preserved remains of an outshot in the N wall. This building is now separated from rest of the township by a modern fence.

In an estate rental of 1683, ‘Nissibost [part of Claigan]’ was leased to four tenants, Robert Shaw, William McColl, William McColl’s son and Rorrie Morresone, for £112 per annum (Book of Dunvegan I, p 149). Rory Morrison, alias ‘The Blind Harper’, was harper bard to Iain Breac MacLeod 18th chief of MacLeod 1637-1693 (see William Matheson,“The Blind Harper” (Edinburgh and Glasgow: Scottish Gaelic Texts Society, 1970).

Dr MacAskill’s list of tenants of 1840 (MacLeod of MacLeod Estate Papers, Vol 1, 644/5) and the census returns of 1841 record three families living in Neisbost, mostly widows with grown up children. By the 1851 census only one widow remained and in 1861 the township was deserted.

The Deer Commission of 1892 included Neisbost in the following list of deserted townships on Dunvegan Estate which could be re-settled: “Lowavaig, Nishabost, Orlarach, Swordale, Totachogar, Bay” (The Royal Commission on the Highlands and Islands, 1892, 5072 and 5228). This didn’t happen until 1926, when, after an earlier unsuccessful attempt, Claigan was designated and re-settled as Department of Agriculture crofts. Neisbost, now called holding No 1 Claigan, was drawn by John MacLeod, his wife Eliza MacAskill and her brother who was a blacksmith. It was vacated Whitsun 1936 and has had no habitation since.

Neisbost is mentioned in Martin Martin’s “A Description of the Western Isles of Scotland” (1698, p191) in connection with a fuller’s earth quarry on the point just north of Port Neisbost.

Information from SRP Claigan, October 2010.