Balnreich

NN63NW 87 64067 37373.

This township stands on a low ridge in enclosed pasture about 650m WSW of Carie farmsteading, and on the S side of the A827 public road. It comprises at least five buildings and three enclosures, which appear to represent the remains of three small farmsteads, each having at least one building and an enclosure. A map of 1769, however, reveals a different layout, and indicates that there was a smithy here at that time. The farmsteads are described here from NW to SE. Also described is a large stone with a circular socket, lying towards the S edge of the township.

The NW farmstead comprises a single building and an enclosure. Aligned NE and SW, the building (BL00 1868) measures 11m by 3.8m within rubble walls up to 0.4m in height. An outshot extends 5.7m from the SW end, and the enclosure, which measures about 21m by 13m, is attached to the NW side.

The central farmstead comprises two buildings and a stackyard. The buildings, which may represent the remains of a house and a barn, stand approximately at right angles to each other. The house (BL00 1869) measures 13.7m from NE to SW by 4.2m transversely within walls reduced by robbing to stony banks 0.4m high. It has been divided into two compartments. Attached to its NW side there is a roughly rectangular enclosure, measuring about 18m by 17m, which contains at least ten circular stack bases, each measuring up to 1.5m in diameter and 0.2m in height. Standing immediately to the E of the house, the barn (BL00 1870) measures 10.5m by 3.2m within rubble walls up to 0.6m in height. It has been divided into two compartments, each of which has an entrance in the SW side, and a circular horse-engine platform, measuring 8.6m in diameter and 0.5m in height, abuts the NE wall.

The SE farmstead comprises at least two buildings and an enclosure. The principal building (BL00 1871) is a byre-dwelling, aligned NE and SW. It measures 18.7m by 4.5m within walls up to 1m in height, and an outshot extends 5m from the NE gable. The interior of the building is divided into two compartments, each with an entrance on the SE, and there is a byre-drain in the SW compartment. This building forms part of the NW side of the enclosure, which has measured at least 30m from NE to SW by 16m transversely, though the SW end is poorly defined. At the W corner of the enclosure there is a subrectangular hollow, open to the SE, which appears to be the robbed remains of a small outbuilding. Immediately SE of this structure there is a stone measuring 0.45m by 0.45m, with a socket cut into its upper surface. The socket measures 0.18m in diameter and 0.45m in depth. Finally, there may have been a third building on the SE side of the enclosure, roughly parallel to the byre-dwelling, of which only part of the NW side and the W corner survive, now incorporated into the enclosure bank.

John Farquharson's 1769 Survey of the North Side of Loch Tay (National Archives of Scotland, RHP 973/1, Plan 8) depicts a township here comprising nine buildings (one of them identified as a smithy) and two enclosures, but none of these structures can be identified with any confidence amongst those described above, with the possible exceptions of the house and enclosure of the NW farmstead. At that time the settlement stood on the farm of Easter Carwhin. The 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Perthshire 1867, sheet lxix) shows as roofed the principal building of each farmstead and the barn of the central farmstead. It also shows the three enclosures and a roofless structure on the site of the possible third building of the SE farmstead. Only one building (the house of the SE farmstead, BL00 1871) was still roofed by the date of the 2nd edition of the OS map (Perthshire 1900, sheet lxix NW).

Farquharson applies the name Blarmore to this site, though the 1st edition of the OS map names it Balnreich, and applies the name Blarmore to a farmstead about 1km to the SE (NN63NE 66). Roy's Military Survey of Scotland (1747-55, Sheet 16/4) names this site Ballinraich, also reserving the name Blarmore for the settlement to the SE. The site now lies on Carie farm.

(BL00 1868-71, 2549)

Visited by RCAHMS (SDB) 30 November 2000.

A 'smiddy' is recorded on the lands of Blairmore in a wadset by John Campbell of Glenorchy to Colin Campbell, February 1676 (National Archives of Scotland, GD112/2/29). By the 1860s the smithy had moved to a new site about 200m to the E (see NN63NW 88).

Harrison, J 2003 (RCAHMS MS1155/6)

Information from RCAHMS (SDB) 22 February 2007.