Badentarbat

NC01SW 24.08 0103 0972

The salmon fishing station at Badentarbat is the centre for a seasonal commercial bag-net fishery for wild salmon. Illness prevented other than two men unsuccessfully working a sweep net in 1992 and 1993, but a new tenant re-set the bag nets in 1994. Though most of the surviving buildings date from the 1850s onwards, there may well have been a fishing station here from the early 1800s. The house was built c.1860-70, originally single storey with an attic pole-store reached by an outside stair and a net store at one end. This building had a slated roof from the beginning. The present net store is said to incorporate an earlier ice-house, though the primary function was as a salt-house, tigh salainn, earthed up on both sides. The salt was used for pickling the salmon (and herring). The present large vaulted ice-house (also converted for other uses) dates from the 1870s with its pitched roof added towards the end of the century. This semi-subterranean stone store was packed with ice collected from a man-made pond during the cold weather, thrown in through a rear chute, and kept there until packed around the fish for transportation to the urban markets. The ice pond is identified by a shallow marshy lochan behind the fishing station, and by the remains of a sluice (Beaton 1994).

The various elements of the salmon fishery are generally as described by Beaton. The house stands to the S of the public road at NC 0099 0970; there is a garden on its SE side, at the bottom of which a bothy stands just above the shore. These two buildings are depicted on the 2nd edition of the OS 6-inch map (Ross and Cromarty 1906, sheet iiia - surveyed 1902) but the house cannot be earlier than the 1st edition of the map (Cromartyshire 1881, sheet iiia - surveyed 1875), which shows a long roofed building standing closer to the shore, approximately on the line of the present garden wall (and possibly incorporating the bothy). The vaulted ice-house is set into the hillside 100m SW of the house at NC 0091 0962. This does appear on the 1st edition map, and is marked as an ice-house. The net store is on the N side of the road at NC 0103 0972, and this is also marked as an ice-house on the 1st edition map. The lochan, now overgrown, is to the NE of the net store; it is not shown on either of the first two OS editions, although it does appear on Morrison's 1775 survey (SRO, E746/189). The remains of the sluice gate are at the SW corner of the loch, about 45m N of the net store. On the grassy bar between the loch and the shore there are a number of holes, marked by wooden posts, still used to support the poles on which fishing nets are hung to dry.

Visited by RCAHMS (SDB) August 1994

E Beaton 1994

Site recorded during a survey of the intertidal zone and the coast edge (50m from the mean high tide mark) between the Rivers Ullapool and Culag.

NC 010 097 Salmon fishing station.

Sponsors: Historic Scotland, Glasgow University Archaeology Department.

A Long 1996