Tir Artair

NN53NE 62 5900 3500

The present landscape and field pattern at Tir Artair is largely a creation of agricultural improvement and change from the late 18th century onwards, though elements of an earlier field system survive.

Tir Artair is first recorded in the mid-15th century, when it formed part of the crown lands of Discher and Toyer. By the end of the 16th century it was the property of the Campbells of Glenorchy, forebears of the Campbells of Breadalbane, and it remained part of the Breadalbane estates until the early 20th century (see RCAHMS MS 1155/6, pp 6-15). John Farquharson's 1769 Survey of the North Side of Loch Tay (National Archives of Scotland, RHP 973/1, Plan 2) shows 'Terartar' divided into four farms: Miltown of Finlarig (also known as Miltown of Tirarthur), Ballimenoch (or Middle Town), Ballindalloch and Marragness. By 1838 these farms had been joined into one holding ('Tirarthur'), which in that year was offered for let as a sheep farm (RCAHMS MS 1155/6, Appendix: Site Events). During the 19th century this farm was centred on a steading that stood on the site now occupied by the present Tir Artair house (see NN53SE 96), but the lands are now part of the larger Morenish Farm, with a new house and steading farther to the E.

In the late 19th century Tir Artair was bounded on the W by the Allt na Bailce and on the E by the Allt Tir Artair, two burns that flow into the W end of Loch Tay. The enclosed ground (from the loch shore up to the cliffs of Creag Tir Artair is today characterised by rectilinear fields bounded by drystone dykes and post-and-wire fences, intermixed (especially below the public road) with areas of deciduous woodland. Some of these field boundaries, and much of the woodland, are depicted on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Perthshire 1867, sheet lxviii), while most of the rest had been established by the date of the 2nd edition of the map (Perthshire 1900, sheet lxviii SE). However, traces of an earlier field pattern survive towards the upper end of this area, where several disjointed lengths of earthen bank closely match field boundaries depicted on Farquharson's 1769 survey. The landscape that Farquharson mapped was very different to that shown on the early OS maps, comprising a patchwork of small fields of irregular plan and very little woodland, though he does show one straight dyke defining the lower section of the march between Miltown and Ballimenoch, suggesting that improvements to the landscape were already underway in the 1760s. The dyke that now follows this former march, extending from the loch shore at NN 5911 3446 to the road at NN 5894 3487, may be the structure mapped by Farquharson.

The upper limit of enclosed ground has been marked by a succession of three head dykes, all of which survive. The earliest, mapped by Farquharson in 1769, runs below Creag Tir Artair, from NN 5847 3520 to NN 5944 3554. The first edition of the OS 6-inch map shows the second head dyke, parallel to the first but some 70m to the N and closer to the base of the cliffs, while the third head dyke is first depicted on the second edition of the OS map, again lying parallel to its predecessors but following a line above the cliffs. This third dyke continues to mark the upper boundary of Morenish Farm.

Visited by RCAHMS (MFTR) November 2000 and (SDB) May 2004