Lurg

Lurg, a small deserted settlement at NH 694 004 (OS 6"map, Inverness-shire, 2nd ed., {1903}) comprises 9 buildings, 3 small enclosures, a corn-drying-kiln and several enclosed fields.

The buildings vary from 7.5m x 3.5m to 14.5m x 3.5m with walling up to 0.5m in height.

It was depopulated in the mid-19th century. (Capt J Macpherson, Dunmore, Newtonmore, Inverness-shire)

Visited by OS (N K B) 28 September 1965.

NH60SE 1.01 6954 0034

This township, which is situated on an S-facing hillside near the mouth of Glen Banchor, comprises the footings of fourteen rectangular buildings (KING95 283, 285-8, 291-9), an L-shaped building (KING95 290), two kilns (KING95 284, 724), several enclosures and a head-dyke of at least two phases. The buildings form two clusters (NH 6966 0032, KING95 284-7 and NH 6975 0020, KING95 290-9), accompanied by two isolated outliers (NH 6989 0021, KING95 288 and NH 6954 0034, KING95 283), and all but one of the buildings (KING95 297) lie outwith the head-dyke. A coniferous plantation swathes the E half of the township ground and it obscures at least two fields which are depicted on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Inverness-shire 1872, sheet ci). The ploughed-up footings of two buildings shown on the current edition of the 1:10560 map (1970) lie, within the plantation (NH 6940 0037).

Thirteen of the buildings range in size from 5.2m by 2.5m (KING95 287) to 7.9m by 2.6m (KING95 297) internally; the two others are larger, measuring 11.5m by 2.5m (KING95 283) and 10.3m by an exceptionally broad 4.5m (KING95 298) internally. The footings are of faced-rubble or stone-and-turf and are spread up to 1.2m in thickness and 0.6m in height. With the exception of one building where the position of the doorway is not visible (KING95 297), the entrances are all in a side wall. Only three of the buildings (KING95 294, 297, 299) are laid out across the contour; the others lie along the contour on axes ranging from E to W to NE to SW. Two buildings (KING95 283, 288) are divided into two compartments, another (KING95 299) has an internal byre-drain and a midden hollow outside the entrance. Drains have been cut along the upslope sides of eleven of the buildings (KING95 283, 285-8, 290-2, 296-7, 299).

Five of the buildings (KING95 287, 292, 297-9) are depicted as unroofed on the 1st edition map, while the two recently disturbed buildings in the corner of the plantation (NH 6940 0037) are shown as roofed.

One of the two kilns (KING95 284, NH 6964 0032), which is situated in a cluster of buildings, comprises a collapsed bowl measuring about 1m in diameter set within the W end of a subrectangular structure measuring 5.9m from E to W by 4.9m transversely overall. The second (KING95 724, NH 6981 0007) is situated at the edge of a patch of improved ground within the head-dyke; it comprises a stony mound contained by a coursed-rubble revetment and measures 4m in diameter and 0.5m in height. The bowl has been reduced to an irregular hollow, about 1.2m across, with what may have been the flue on the E.

Four large fields can be identified to the S and W of the township buildings; the easternmost is covered by a coniferous plantation which may also have obscured a further field. Patches of rig and piles of field-gathered stones are visible within the fields, which are enclosed by asymmetrical banks with a coursed-rubble outer face and earthern inner. Two smaller enclosures are attached to field banks at NH 6959 0029 and NH 6968 0029, while, to the NW of the plantation (NH 6922 0042), a bank cuts across the valley floor to the E bank of the Allt a' Chaorainn, presumably forming the N side of an enclosure.

(KING95 283-8, 290-9, 724)

Visited by RCAHMS (DCC), 10 October and 7 November 1995.