Inveraray Castle Estate, Dubh Loch, Boathouse

This 18th-century boat-house is situated on the SW shore of the Dubh Loch, which had long been celebrated for both salmon- and trout-fishing (en.1*). It was built for the Argyll Estate by the local mason lames Potter in 1751-2 at a cost of £39 10s.3d. (en.2). After lying derelict for many years, it was reroofed in 1987.

The boat-house lies immediately below a terrace carrying an estate road, and its W side-wall is revetted against a steep slope. It is built of lime-mortared rubble and measures 12.5mfrom N to S by 6.2m over 0.8m walls which stand to a height of 3.5m. The gables are pitched and the roof is slated. In the N gable-wall, facing the loch, there is a segmental-headed archway having a span of 2.9m and a height of 2.3m. Its jambs and voussoirs of schist are wrought with a 30mmchamfer, and then a 0.22m polished band followed by diagonally tooled tails. The archway has iron crooks for double doors, and its ingoes are spanned by a massive timber lintel. The landward approach led to a doorway in the S wall, which has jambs and a lintel of dressed schist wrought with a 25mm chamfer.

It is possible that the interior of the boat-house originally contained water, but stone benches 0.75m in width against both side-walls were probably built to support a raised timber floor. A drystone revetment flanks the approach from the N wall of the boat-house to the loch, and the N gable-wall is prolonged to the w as a screen-wall revetting the higher ground immediately W of the building.

RCAHMS 1992, visited September 1987