Dunlichity

NH63SE 85 6617 3259.

The remains of at least 15 buildings, kilns and huts, together with a number of enclosures and field banks are scattered across unimproved rocky ground to the SE of Dunlichity farmhouse, at the foot of the N slopes of Creag Bhuide.

Two groups of structures can be identified. The first group consists of 9 buildings or huts disposed in a seemingly-random arrangement across the rocky hillside. They range in size from 8m to 11.8m in length by 4m to 5.6m in breadth over walls about 0.8m thick, which are often extensively robbed or surviving as stony banks up to 1.4m thick.

Most of these buildings are too ruinous for any details other than their basic dimensions to be recorded, though it can be said that at least two are divided into two compartments (USN93 311 and 306), while bedneuks were recorded in two others (USN93 303 and 305). Amongst these buildings there are three kilns, all dug into sloping ground. They have bowls measuring up to 2.2m in diameter and all have the remains of a barn attached (USN93 302, 307 and 315).

The second group stands at the N edge of the township and consists of three buildings ranged around a courtyard, which is open to the ENE (USN93 308-10). They are larger than those of the first group, measuring between 11.1m and 14.3m in length and 5m to 5.4m in breadth over walls which are generally 0.8m thick and stand up to 1.1m high.

The building on the SSE side of the yard (USN93 308), which has had two extensions added at its ENE end, has a fireplace, while building USN93 310, on the opposite side of the yard, features a central drain. An enclosure on the W side of these buildings contains three stack stands. From its better state of preservation, it seems likely that the second group is of a later date than the first, and this is borne out by the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Inverness-shire 1874, sheet xxxi), which depicts the courtyard farmhouse as roofed and named Balnaclach, while the only buildings of the first group to be depicted are USN93 304 and 305, which are unroofed.

The Name Book notes a 'small farmhouse' here, 'one storey high with offices attached, the whole thatched and in fair condition' (ONB 1871). A settlement is also indicated here on a plan of Drumboy, part of the Castle of Inverness lands, dating to c.1760 (SRO: RHP 1841); it is not specifically named, but it is clear that it formed part of the township of Drumboy along with another settlement to the NW (now beneath the present farm of Dunlichity) and the mill opposite Dunlichity Church (NH63SE 70). By 1905, when the 2nd edition of the OS 6-inch map (Inverness-shire 1905, sheet xxxi) was published, only one building here, USN93 308, was still roofed.

The succession displayed here from an informal arrangement of buildings to a more orderly courtyard farmhouse is paralleled at Ballone (NH63SE80), about 1.3km to the E.

(USN93 301-316)

Visited by RCAHMS (SDB) 17 March 1993.