Feranach

NC82NW 27.00 834 275.

NC 8441 2728 Feranach (in ruins)

OS 6-inch map, (1962)

At NC 8441 2728 are the footings of a building and scant remains of two others comprising a minor deserted settlement. There are associated enclosures and field banks in the vicinity. Later buildings abutting a large polygonal enclosure can be seen. Feranach at NC 8441 2728 is a post-Clearance shepherd's house with an enclosure attached (see NC82NW 6).

Visited by OS (JB) 22 February 1977

The township of Feranach is situated above the N bank of the Abhainn na Frithe; it comprises five buildings and a kiln on the NNW edge of an area of rigged ground, which is enclosed by a head-dyke. The most prominent feature now visible is a large delapidated sheep-fank, which occupies the middle of the township, overlying one of the buildings (KILD91 285).

All the buildings are much reduced, rarely standing to as much as 0.3m in height. The four largest buildings range in breadth from 2.9m to 3.4m within stony banks spread to between 1.4m and 2.1m in thickness. There are two long buildings, 26.6m and 18m in length respectively (KILD91 285 and 288), and two shorter buildings to the W of the fank (KILD91 283 and 284), 11.5m and 7.9m in length respectively, which are built end-on to one another 5m apart. On the N of the fank, what may be a kiln (KILD91 287) is situated 9.5m NW of the end of the fifth building (KILD91 286), possibly a detached barn; the kiln measures 2.1m in diameter within much reduced stony walls barely 0.2m in height and the barn measures 6.7m in length by 2.3m in breadth. The township is known as Free in the estate records, but a township called Frae is depicted at this location on the S side of the river by General Roy and the otherwise unknown name of Kannais is applied to the settlement on the N side (Roy 1747-55, sheet 36/2). The lands of Free are first documented in a grant of 1527 by James V to William Sinclare (Reg Mag Sig 1513-1546). In the Hearth Tax return of 1690 five tenants of Free were listed, each with one hearth (SRO E69/23/1), but between 1813 and 1816 the tenants of Free were cleared. A new sheep farm N of the Abhainn na Frithe called Feranach was let to Hugh Sutherland and the lands to the S of the Abhainn na Frithe were all combined into a large sheep-run called Kilcalmkill (Adam 1972). A number of deeds refer to "the Southside of the lands of Free", for example (see Nat Lib Scot Sutherland MSS, Dep 313/311), or similar divisions of the farm, suggesting that more than one settlement made up the farm of Free on both sides of the Abhainn na Frithe. This might include the townships of Auchnasheenish, Achan (NC82NW 12 and 13) as well as Feranach and the farmstead across the river (NC82NW 30).

Reg Magni Sig Reg Scot III; W Roy 1747-55.

(KILD91 283-288)

Visited by RCAHMS (PJD) 5 May 1991.

27.01 NC 836 273 Cultivation Remains