Glen Shira, Rob Roy's House

RCAHMS surveyed Rob Roy's House, Glen Shira on 27 June 1984 producing a plan at a scale of 1:100. The plan was redrawn in ink and published at a scale of 1:250 (RCAHMS 1992, 477).

The ruins of an 18th-century house and outbuilding are situated on the E bank of the River Shira, 500m above its confluence with the Brannie Burn and 250m NNW of the ruined cottage of Beinn Buidhe which replaced it as the residence of the local shepherd soon after 1857 (en.1*). In local tradition the site is associated with the period of residence in Glen Shira by Robert Campbell, alias Rob Roy MacGregor, in the first quarter of the 18th century, and a dirk bearing the initials R McG was found near the ruined building in the 1880s (en.2).

The house stands at the Wedge of an area of fairly level but damp ground, bounded to the W by the wooded gorge of the River Shira and to N and E by hill-slopes which have recently been afforested. The site is traversed by low outcrops of rock, and some erratic boulders are scattered around, but there is no definite evidence of an enclosure. Some 12m to the NE there are the footings of a small outbuilding, possibly set upon the remains of an older structure.

The drystone rubble-masonry of the house incorporates some massive boulders in the lowest course, but is composed mainly of smaller rounded glacial boulders and rough slabs of the contorted schist that outcrops in the adjacent gorge. It measures 12.5m by 6m over walls about 1m thick and stands to a maximum height of 1.9m at the NW angle, which may have been rebuilt; parts of the Wand S walls, however, are much reduced. The NE angle has evidently collapsed and been rounded off during rebuilding, but the other angles are square internally and externally. The entrance-doorway is towards the N end of the E side-wall, and there appears to be an opposed blocked opening in the W wall. In the E wall there is a blocked window towards the centre, and the gap near the S end may mark the position of a further window. Between these two features there is a well-preserved raised cruck-slot, and other less certain examples suggest a division into four bays (en.3*). At the W end of the N gable-wall there is a high-level recess which was probably an aumbry, and a modern sheep-twinning pen has been built in the NW angle.

While this building may be ascribed to the 18th century, it is doubtful whether it is as early as the time of Rob Roy, and 19th-century tradition was indeed divided as to whether he occupied a house or a cave. The house is comparable in size with some of the pre-1750 buildings at Blairowin township (No. 216), and its opposed doorways support an early date, but the state of preservation suggests that it has, at the very least, been extensively renovated in the later stages of occupation.

RCAHMS 1992, visited June 1984