Belnabodach

NJ31SW 12 3418 1390

The remains of Belnabadoch farmsteading are situated on a terrace on the W bank of the Water of Nochty and it was occupied into the 20th century (OS 6-inch map, Aberdeenshire, 2nd edition, 1903, sheet lx).

The farmhouse (NJ 3423 1390) lies on the E side of the steading and now comprises a two-phase L-shaped shell in which a two-storey NE wing has been added to an earlier two-storey block. Although both buildings are roofless and devoid of internal timbering, each survives to chimney height. The earlier block has an entrance on the SE, opposite a tall stair-light in the NW wall, and there are fireplaces at ground- and first-floor level in both gables. A doorway in the SE part of the NE gable gives entry to the NE wing, which has a front entrance midway along the NE side, but in other respects is very similar to the earlier block. The garden is situated about 20m to the SW of the house and is enclosed by a low stony bank through which a number of mature deciduous trees have grown.

Immediately to the N of the garden enclosure are the low stone footings of a long range. It measures 34m from WNW to ESE by 5.3m transversely overall, but both the 1st (Aberdeenshire, sheet lx, 1869) and 2nd editions of the OS 6-inch map show that it was once longer. Now comprising at least four compartments, the range appears to have been truncated at its WNW end. Immediately to the SW of the present WNW end of the range there are the disturbed footings of a small building measuring about 4m square overall.

To the N of the range lie the remains of a threshing barn, measuring 22m in length from E to W by 6m transversely over mortar-bonded stone walls; these stand up to 4m high on the N but are reduced to mere footings on the S. A wheel-pit is situated at the W end of the N wall and was fed from a dammed pond, which is situated immediately to the W, and was itself fed via a long lade more than 1.1km in length. At the E end of the barn there are the footings of a substantial outshot.

A fifth building, constructed after 1869, is situated immediately S of the mill-pond. It measures 14.5m from NNE to SSW by 5.7m over a mortared wall up to 3m high on the SSW, and there is at least one entrance in the ESE side.

Immediately to the SW of the steading, in a triangular area of ground bordered on the N and E by two tracks to the steading and on the SW by the main track up the W side of the valley, there are the remains of cultivation ridges; aligned roughly N and S, they measure about 4m in average breadth.

Visited by RCAHMS (JRS, ATW) 4 March 1998.

Documentary record [unspecified] for the site of a manor.

NMRS, MS/712/43.

Walter Macfarlane lists a gentleman's house at Belnabodach in the early 18th century, of which no trace remains (Macfarlane, 1906-8, i, 20).

Information from RCAHMS (PJD) 16 June 2006

Macfarlane, 1906-8