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Skye, Fasach
Township (Post Medieval)
Site Name Skye, Fasach
Classification Township (Post Medieval)
Canmore ID 71115
Site Number NG25NE 14
NGR NG 266 573
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/71115
- Council Highland
- Parish Duirinish
- Former Region Highland
- Former District Skye And Lochalsh
- Former County Inverness-shire
Field Visit (3 October 1990)
NG25NE 14 266 573.
The farm of Fasach is first mentioned in a rental of 1683 (R C MacLeod 1928 Vol I.), but was let on a 30 year lease in 1788 (SRO GD 9/3 Abstracts of the British Fisheries Society 1786-88), when the British Fisheries Society considered buying it. It is inferred that it was sold with the rest of Waternish in 1796 (R C MacLeod 1929, Vol.II), and subsequently came into the possession of Charles Grant of Waternish a Director of the British Fisheries Society. (J Dunlop 1978).
A plan of the farm carried out for the Society in 1790 shows a small 'town' of four buildings on the site of Waternish House. Its boundaries were defined by the sea to the W, the Allt Fasach to the N, and a boundary dyke to the E and S (SRO RHP 11785). The E boundary is still visible in a forestry plantation to the W of the public road past Waternish House, and its S end is visible in the rough ground to the S of the plantation (NG 2710 5769 to NG 2695 5704).
A scatter of structures to the S of the Allt Fasach, within an area of ridging and field banks, some 400m ENE of Waternish House, may be the remains of an earlier township than that shown on the estate map (SRO RHP 11785). At least six units comprising at least one building and an enclosure are situated on a gently sloping SW hillside. Much of the area, especially to the W, has been ploughed, reducing many of the structures to low grass-grown footings. Although much of the ridging has been smoothed by recent improvement it is evident over most of the area. The globular fields appear to postdate the ridging, and an open drain cuts through the middle of the farmstead from NW to SE, cutting away the SW end of a house-platform.
Two farmsteads were identified some 300m N of the township of Fasach on the banks of a tributary of the Allt Fasach. That to the N of the Burn comprised a building with a porch and an enclosure of irregular shape, and that to the S of the burn is represented by two buildings and a detached enclosure.
(WAT90 1136-1157)
Visited by RCAHMS (DCC) 3 October 1990.
Note (15 October 1996)
A township, comprising four roofed buildings, two unroofed buildings and one enclosure is depicted on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Inverness-shire, Isle of Skye 1880, sheet xv). One unroofed building is shown on the current edition of the OS 1:10560 map (1968).
Information from RCAHMS (AKK) 15 October 1996.
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