Ballcorach Bothy

There is a roofed barn, threshing machine and horse engine at Ballcorach farmsteading on the east side of the River Avon. The barn has been converted into a bothy and on the date of visit was being used as an office for the Tomintoul and Glenlivet Landscape Partnership. A threshing machine survives in-situ, inside the bothy and there is graffiti written across the long, south-west side and a little on the south-east end. The graffiti includes initials written in oil, probably used to lubricate the threshing machine. In addition there is pencil handwriting in copper plate style, which includes ‘John MacGregor Balcorrach 1892’. More recent writing, on the end of the machine and on the partially hidden north-east side, includes records of New Year parties. For example, ‘Peter Welch 2008/9’, is hand written in pencil.

Visited by HES Survey and Recording (AGCH, ZB, EKB) 25 April 2017.

Former mill now converted to a bothy. Contains Victorian threshing machine and well preserved horse engine platform immediately behind.

Recording Scotland's graffiti project was designed to review the range of historic and contemporary graffiti art across Scotland. It involved desk-based assessment and fieldwork at a number of example sites, to consider recording methodologies and dissemination practices.

Between 2016 and 2017, phase 1 of the project aimed to:

Aim 1: review a range of historic and contemporary graffiti art from across Scotland, already present in Canmore.

Aim2: undertake a research review of previous approaches to recording graffiti art in Canmore and other HERs, review and develop the current Thesaurus terms.

Aim 3: test and develop a range of recording methods within the following programmes or projects: Discovering the Clyde programme (1223), Scotland’s Urban Past (1222), Architecture and Industry projects, such as Urban Recording Projects (1028), Area Photographic Survey (311) and the Tomintoul and Glenlivet Landscape Partnership (1167).

Aim 4: the following test sites will be considered for research into the range of historic and contemporary graffiti. They will be analysed to demonstrate the different ages, contexts, styles and survivals of historic and contemporary graffiti: Polphail village (Canmore ID 299112), Scalan farmstead (170726), Cowcaddens Subway Station (243099), Croick Parish Church (12503), Dalbeattie Armament Depot (76279) and Dumbarton Rock (43376).

Aim 5: to research the potential for social media to play a role in crowd-sourcing information and archiving Scotland’s graffiti art.

In 2017-2019, phase 2 of the project aimed to:

Aim 1: To enhance the NRHE to the point at which it can be said to adequately represent the broad range of historic and modern graffiti that is evident throughout Scotland, and to explore ways by which that information can best be disseminated.

Aim 2: To develop guidelines that will convey the HES approach to researching and recording graffiti.

Aim 3: To write a specification for a book on Scotland’s graffiti.

Aim 4: To develop external partnerships to explore further ways to record graffiti and to identify and explore potential funding streams to enable further knowledge exchange and research.

The project was managed by Dr Alex Hale, with contributions from staff across Herirtage and Commercial and Tourism directorates.