Skye, Unish

NG26NW 1.08 239 658.

This farmstead centres on a rectilinear farmyard about 30m NE of Unish House (NG26NW 1.09), around which are two ranges of buildings to the W and S respectively and a rectangular walled garden to the N. Around this core are several stone-walled fields and a total of 16 associated buildings, representing various phases in the development of the farmstead. The buildings are dominated by the main NW to SE axis of the farmstead and its related enclosures and fields, and vary in length between 6.15m and 14m.

The two-compartment building on the S of the farmyard measures 10.4m from ENE-WSW by 4.75m transversely within mortared walls 0.9m in thickness and 2m in height which is entered from the yard through an entrance in the W compartment. There is a fireplace in the W side of the partition and a blocked entrance into the E compartment in the same partition. Each compartment is lit by a window in the N wall. The corners are generally squared except at the SE corner, but the W wall is butted to the S wall and there is also an outshot extending 1.2m to the W, which may be the remains of an earlier phase of end-wall. The building is shown as roofed on both the first and second editions of the Ordnance Survey maps (Island of Skye &c., Inverness-shire, 1880 and 1904, sheet v).

The building to the W of the farmyard is unusual in size and lay-out and is at variance with the domestic nature of most of the other buildings. It has three compartments, a large central room and two smaller rooms at each end with individual access to the S room, the N room being entered via the central room. The building measures 22.3m from NNW-SSE by 4.3m transversely within rubble-faced walls 1.05m in thickness and 2m in height.

(WAT90 355, 358-375)

Visited by RCAHMS (PJD) 1 November 1990.