Skye, Bay

NG25SE 8 270 540.

The farm of Bay is first documented in a Macleod estate rental for 1683,when it was let to one Fergr Beatton for 120 marks (Macleod 1928 Vol. 1). A survey for the British Fisheries Society found there to be 16 married couples, 27 children, 17 unmarried adults and 6 elderly at Bay in 1788 (SRO GD 9/3 Abstracts of the Minutes of British Fisheries Society 1986-8). The Macleod estate map of 1810, surveyed by John Chapman (SRO RHP 8726/4), shows that the farm then comprised 120 acres of arable and 3712 acres of pasture, but the plan shows two sets of boundaries for the farm one of which ran from the Allt a'Chaim in the N via Loch Vorvin to the Allt na Maighdean in the S and thence presumably via the Bay River to the sea, but the other extended the boundaries both to the E over the watershed and in the W to the watershed of the Bay River, taking in the lands of the farm of Camlach (Camagach on the first editions of the Ordnance Survey map of 1880 (Island of Skye &c., Inverness-shire, 1880, xv). For the purposes of this survey the township boundary is defined by the Bay River on the W, the sea and the Allt A'Chaim to the N and thence on the E by the straight bank which runs to the Allt an t-Sluic Mhoir and thence in an arbitrary line from one burn to the next as far as the Allt nam Maighdean in the S (see NG25SE 8.15 for a description of the farm boundaries). Within this area are the remains of the township, two outlying buildings and a farmstead; several globular fields and areas of lazy-bedding; various shielings; a hut-circle; narrow-rig and several sub-peat dykes, one encompassing a 'jelly-baby' shaped structure and another, a large mound of stone.

8.01 NG 2746 5366 Allt an t-Sluic Mhoir: Enclosure; Structure; Sub-peat Dyke (1223-4)

8.02 NG 275 541 Allt Mainnir nan Gobhar: Shieling-huts; Shieling-mounds; Enclosure (1225-7)

8.03 NG 2760 5424 Allt Mainnir nan Gobhar: Shieling-hut (1233)

8.04 NG 2747 5456 Creag Dubh: Shieling-hut (1234)

8.05 NG 2735 5465 Creag Dubh: Shieling-hut (1235)

8.06 NG 2702 5489 Druim a'Chaim: Hut-circle (WAT90 1236); Cord Rig; Sub-peat Dykes

8.07 NG 270 540 Bay: Farmsteads; Building (1238-1246, 1313)

8.08 NG 2717 5439 Allt a Bo-Loin: Farmstead (1247-1248)

8.09 NG 2739 5418 Allt Mainnir nan Gobhar: Building; Enclosure (1249-1250)

8.10 NG 2653 5395 Bay River: Building (1312)

8.11 NG 2759 5314 Bay River: Mound; Enclosure; Sub-peat Dyke (1221-2) 8.12 NG 275 530 Bay River: Shieling-huts (1215-1220)

8.13 NG 274 526 Allt na Beinne Creageach: Shieling-huts; Shieling-mounds; Field-system (925-930)

8.14 NG 272 545 Field-system; Cultivation Remains

8.15 NG 279 539 Boundary Banks

8.16 NG 2672 5429 Building

Visited by RCAHMS (PJD) 3 October 1990.