Barrock House, Home Farm

ND26SE 11.03 28246 62584.

Home Farm [NAT]

OS 1:10,560 map, 1971.

The Home Farm of Barrock House comprises two main steadings together with several detached buildings, including a row of single-storey cottages and a sheephouse. The steading to the NNW of the complex is the earlier of the two, is U-shaped on plan and opens to the SSE. It is built of roughly coursed flagstone with corrugated asbestos roofs and has a stable block on the ENE, a lean-to byre and hen house on the NNW and a cartshed with granary and pigeon loft above on the WNW. Patches of render can be seen on the external wall of the cartshed and cobbled floors survive throughout. The later steading lies immediately to the SSE and is much grander, arranged around a courtyard. Access into the courtyard was gained through a gap in the buildings on the SE as well as through a projecting arched passage located midway along the front, SW, facade. Above this archway, there is a crenellated pigeon loft, to the NW a seven-bay cart shed with granary above and to the SE a row of three cottages roofed in slate which originally had granaries above. This steading is largely built of roughly coursed flagstone and also incorporates a stalled byre with flagstone floor, a stable block, a blacksmith's workshop, a piggery with ornamental doors, stores and a barn with threshing mill. The threshing mill was powered by a roofed horse-engine, but the site is now occupied by a modern grain silo. A millstone said to have come from a whin mill at the steading has been removed to the farmhouse at ND 28106 62646, where it forms an ornamental feature in the back garden. The present layout of the Home Farm compares well with the depictions shown on both the 1st and 2nd editions of the OS 6-inch map (Caithness 1877 and 1907, sheet xiii). The site was visited in 2000.

Information from RCAHMS (ARG) 5 July 2006