Glac Nan Sgadan

NG80NW 1.01 826 087.

1: This 19th-century single-storey cottage (NG 8262 0870), stands on a terrace, on what may be the site of an earlier building, and has a drainage-trench to the rear. It is gable-ended and rectangular on plan, with a symmetrical three bay frontage, and measures 8.95m from NNW to SSE by 4.75m transversely overall. The masonary is of lime-mortared roughly dressed, coursed random rubble. The door and window openings are through splayed from a sharp external arris, with mortar flashing for the frames, and have slab sills and lintels (with timber lintels internally). Its roof was probably slated, and the gables, which incorporate yellow clay flue-liners, terminate in chimney-stacks. To the interior, the walls have been cement rendered and ghosts within the rendering indicate a simple tripartitie division consisting of two rooms and a central closet. There are gable fireplaces and, in the SSE gable beside the principal fireplace, a press. The edge of the terrace to the front of the cottage has been revetted in stone. Some 7m to the ESE, there is a midden incorporating sherds of 19th-century pottery, glass and iron work.

2: This building (NG 8261 0871), which occupies a terrace immediately to the NNW of (1), pre-dates the cottage and was probably the dwelling- house of the earlier farm. Latterly it was converted for use as an outbuilding. It is roughly rectangular on plan, with an outshot on the NW, and measures 6.5m from NW to SE by 4.4m transversely overall. The walls, which are of drystone construction (up to 1.6m thick and 0.6m high), incorporate substantial boulder footings and have a slight external batter. They have been remodelled more than once and there is a blocked window beside the entrance in the NE wall (0.6m wide and 0.6m high). There is an infilled cruck-slot in the SW wall (springing from 1m above ground level, 0.25m wide) and the use of an end cruck is indicated by a break-line in the NW wall. In the SSE corner of the building there is a plinth (0.6m high), which may be secondary, while to the rear of the building, on the SW there is an infilled-trench.

3: On a terrace, directly to the WSW of (2), there are the remains of what may be a hut (NG 8261 0871) measuring 3.2m by 3.1m overall (the NE wall may have been robbed) with an enclosure, or pen, on its NE side.

4: This building (NG 8263 0868), which was probably a byre, has slightly rounded end-walls, a possible entrance in its NNW wall, and what may be a drain emitting from its ENE end-wall. It measures 5.4m from WSW to ENE by 3.8m transversely over walls reduced to heaps of rubble 0.6m in thickness and 0.7m in height.

5: This building (NG 8264 0869), which is set end-on to the stream-gully and has been truncated by the stream, is in a severely wasted condition, but seems to have measured about 6.3m from WSW to ENE by 4.7m transversely overall.

Visited by RCAHMS (IMS) 3 June 1991.

RCAHMS 1991.