Back Settlement

1st and 2nd editions Ordnance Survey maps.

Walking the site after clearing bracken and brambles! Photographs: measured.

This building is shown on the first (1875) and second (1897) editions of the OS 6-inch maps (Argyllshire and Buteshire sheet xliii) as roofed. It consists of a dwelling area, a byre area and a series of three outshots. On the north-east side in front of the doorway to the dwelling area there may have been a porch. The way the stones lie here looks too regular to be just the way they had tumbled. There is no apparant entrance to the byre. It is of drystone construction with an inner and outer layer of stone and rubble infill. The corners are rounded. The walls are up to a metre high. Inland and uphill from here is a kailyard surrounded by turf dykes 60 to 80 cms wide and 70 cms high, measuring about 15 by 28 metres. Longitudinally across the midddle is another turf dyke. To the south-west of the building is another enclosure this time surrounded on three sides by drystone dykes and on the seaward side a small natural cliff forming a ha-ha. In this are two large coppiced hazel stools.