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Camban, West Affric
Bothy (20th Century) (1969), Farmstead (Post Medieval), Shepherds Cottage (19th Century)
Site Name Camban, West Affric
Classification Bothy (20th Century) (1969), Farmstead (Post Medieval), Shepherds Cottage (19th Century)
Alternative Name(s) Carnban
Canmore ID 137476
Site Number NH01NE 1
NGR NH 0536 1838
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/137476
- Council Highland
- Parish Kilmorack
- Former Region Highland
- Former District Inverness
- Former County Inverness-shire
NH01NE 1.00 0536 1838
NH01NE 1.01 053 183 Cottage: cruck-framed
NH01NE 1.02 0539 1855 Sheepfold
A farmstead, comprising one roofed bothy and up to seven roofless rectangular buildings and enclosures, was recorded during a survey of the West Affric Estate by J Wordsworth for the National Trust for Scotland.
The bothy, at NH 0534 1835, has been restored. It measures 12m by 6m overall and has chimneys built into its gable-ends. It may correspond to the cruck-framed building (NH01SE 1.01) previously noted at Camban. A ruined mortared building, measuring 10m by 4m over 0.6m wide walls, lies to the E at NH 0536 1837. There is a 0.9m wide doorway but no evidence for chimneys. Closeby, at NH 0536 1838, there is a heavily robbed drystone structure measuring 7m by 4m overall. To the S below the track, at NH 0536 1835, there is a further rectangular building measuring 10m by 4m over 0.5m thick walls. A 1m wide doorway is centrally placed in the S wall. There is no evidence for chimneys. The foundations of a building, measuring 8m by 5m, lie directly S of this structure whilst what may be a wall of a fifth structure, otherwise heavily overgrown, lies some 30m downhill.
To the E of the burn about 100m E of the main group, there are two further buildings. The W building, at NH 0549 1837, measures 10.5 by 4m overall. A 5m by 2m pen has been added to the E end. Further E again, at NH 05571843, there are the remains of a mortared rectangular building of uncertain length, perhaps up to 8m, by 5m. The 0.9m wide doorway is on the N wall with a further, 0.55m wide and 0.6m high entry and a window on the S wall. This building is associated with a delapidated enclosure. There are traces of further enclosures on both sides of the track.
J Wordsworth (Wordsworth Archaeological Services) 25 June and 1 July 1995; NMRS MS 961/22, no.28
Field Visit (1 July 1995 - 1 July 1995)
Camban is noted in the 1841 census and there are 4 roofed buildings in this part of the settlement shown on the 1st edition OS map.
To the NW of the focus of five Camban buildings is an enclosure, also marked on the 1st edition OS map, defined by a dyke spread to c1m wide and c0.4m high. Another enclosure is just evident S of the path (not marked on the 1st edition OS map) with a dyke c0.8m wide and c0.2m high which has disappeared to the S.
There are short lengths of drystone dyke in the vicinity and a ?clearance cairn.
Information from NTS: WAFF001 (JH and JW) 9th October 1997
NTS Survey
Field Visit (9 October 1997 - 9 October 1997)
The remains of a building c5m wide and at least c8m long with mortared walls c0.7m wide and up to 1m high is aligned cSW/NE. There is an entrance in its NW wall c0.9m wide and another in its SE wall c0.6m wide. There is also a window opening in the SE wall. This building, presumably a byre, lies on the N edge of an enclosure above the Allt Camban defined by a drystone dyke spread to c1m wide and c0.3m high. This 'extension' to the Camban settlement is unnamed on the 1st edition OS map.
Information from NTS: WAFF003 (JH and JW) 9th October 1997
NTS Survey
Note (29 June 2022)
NH01NE 1 NH 05338 18345
This 19th century shepherd’s cottage, now a bothy, is situated on the N side of Fionngleann, a high and remote pass that connects Glen Licht to the W and Glen Affric to the E along a former drovers route (Haldane 1952, 79). The cottage, at least four unroofed buildings, an area of improved pasture (centred NH 0539 1830) and an area of peat cutting (centred NH 0542 1818) are visible on vertical aerial photographs. A 1995 survey by Wordsworth Archaeological Services (Highland HER No. SHG21209) identified up to seven buildings of 19th and 20th century date at Camban, but did not find evidence for the cruck-framed building previously listed (Stell 1981, 84).
Six roofed buildings and an improved area of ground are depicted on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Inverness-shire, sheet l and lxix, 1875). The entry in the contemporary OS Name Book described Camban as ‘a shepherd’s house…upon the property of Chisholm of Chisholm’ (Inverness-shire, No. 48, p.8).
On the night of the 1881 census Camban was occupied by shepherd Alexander McRae (56) with his wife Catherine (56), son Duncan (29), a fox-hunter, daughter Margaret (17), granddaughter Catherine (5) and a third cousin Donald McLennan, also a shepherd. The last tenant, named Paterson, moved to Alltbeithe in mid-Glen Affric by 1920 (Allan 2017, 89). The building was first renovated by the Mountain Bothies Association in 1969 in memory of two climbers, Philip Tranter (d.1966) and Alistair Park (d.1965). A renovation in 2008 was undertaken in memory of Liz Innes (Allan 2017, 89; Tranter, nd).
A roofed building annotated ‘Camban Bothy’, an unroofed building, an enclosure and two livestock pens are depicted on the current edition of the OS (GIS) Mastermap.
Information from HES Archaeological Survey (D M Bratt) 10 June 2021
(Allan 2017, 89)
