Whilk

ND34SW 470 ND 30154 40605

The ruins of a farmstead are situated on open ground 170m W of the Burn of Warehouse and comprise two buildings standing roughly at right-angles to one another at the N end of a garden. The building immediately N of the garden is a range measuring 20.8m in length from N to S over clay-bonded and lime-pointed walls 0.8m in thickness and up to 1.9m in height. It contains four compartments, all laid off the same line of the wall on the E, but whereas the two southern are about 5.5m in overall breadth, the northern are broader by 0.7m on the W. The compartment at the S end has been largely reduced to grass-grown footings 0.3m in height.

The second compartment stands to gable height at the N end, but the mid-gable on the S is tumbled. Nevertheless, part of a window can be seen offset to the W, and its inner face is lined with coursed rubble, both features implying that the two southern compartments represent at least two periods of construction. A doorway can be seen at the S end of its E wall, though only a short section adjacent to the NE corner stands to its full height. The W wall is greatly reduced.

The third compartment is partly filled with rubble, but the remains of one doorway are visible at the N end of its E wall, and what may be another at the E end of the partition wall on the N is blocked. This led through into the fourth compartment, which is also partly filled with rubble. It survives to its full height only at the NW corner, but the remains of a doorway are visible at the S end of its E wall.

The second building lies 9m E of the N end of the range, and is linked to it by a drystone wall. The building measures 13.7m from ESE to WNW by 3.2m transversely within clay-bonded and lime-pointed walls 0.7m in thickness and up to 1.7m in height. It contains two compartments, the western of which has a centrally-placed blocked fireplace in its WNW end. Two pairs of opposed cruck slots are visible in the walls, rising from a point 0.5m above the present ground surface. The western on the NNE rises to the wall-head, where a thin horizontal flagstone exhibits a crude, semi-circular cut-out in its inner edge. A doorway linking the two compartments is situated at the SSW end of the shared partition wall. The ESE compartment is more ruinous than its neighbour, but two adjoining ambries are set at slightly different levels into the NNE end of the partition wall. The bases of two cruck slots are visible in the NNE wall and there is a doorway at the ESE end of the SSW wall. The SSW end of the ESE gable is supported by a coursed rubble buttress.

The 1st edition of the OS-6 inch map (Caithness 1877, sheet xxix) depicts both the range and the building. The Ordnance Survey Name Book (Caithness, No. 6, p.54) describes Whilk as 'Four small Farm steadings occupied by George Sutherland and others, the property of A Sharp Esq. Of Clyth'. The only part of the farmstead shown roofed on the 2nd edition of the map (Caithness 1907, sheet xxix) is the northern half of the range.

(YARROWS04 106, 139)

Visited by RCAHMS (ATW) 12 May 2004