Whiteleen

ND34SW 126 32197 42952

See also ND34SW 270 Whiteleen Farmstead

'slots'

G Stell 1981.

The remains of this farmstead are situated in rough pasture, close to an extensive area of peaty moorland that extends over the craggy sandstone outcrops immediately to the W. The cluster of four buildings making up the farmstead comprises a farmhouse on the N side of group; a byre immediately to its SE; a kiln-barn to the NE of the byre; and a building containing cruck-slots to the SW of the byre. All four buildings are depicted roofed on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Caithness 1877, sheet xxix), but the building with the cruck-slots and the kiln-barn are shown unroofed on the 2nd edition of the map (1907, sheet xxix).

The farmhouse (YARROWS04 389) measures 16.9m from NNE to SSW by 5m transversely overall. The clay-bonded stone walls, which are 0.6m in thickness, survive up to wall-head height in places, and almost the full height of a mid-gable, but the S end has been reduced to its footings. The S half of the building appears to have been a cottage with an entrance and a window in its E side and another window in the W. The mid-gable has a fireplace in its S side and the S gable probably also contained one. A doorway in the E end of the mid-gable leads through into the N compartment, which has a doorway and a window in its E wall. All of the windows and doorways throughout the building have stone lintels and the wall-head is formed by large horizontal flagstones.

The byre (YARROWS04 387) measures 18.1m from NW to SE by 4.65m transversely overall. The clay-bonded stone walls, which are 0.6m in thickness, survive up to wall-head height in places, but elsewhere they have been reduced to their footings. The building contains three compartments of which that on the SE, which has an entrance in its SW side, accounts for about half its length. The two compartments in the NW half of the building are linked by a doorway (now blocked) at the NE end of the partition wall, and the NW compartment also has an external entrance in its SW wall.

The kiln-barn (YARROWS04 388) measures 7.6m from NW to SE by 3.5m transversely overall, and its clay-bonded stone walls, which are founded on large boulders, measure 0.6m in thickness and stand up to 1.7m in height at the open SE end. The NW end is rounded and contains a kiln measuring 2.1m in internal diameter, though the SW side of the bowl, which is full of rubble, is poorly preserved. The kiln is separated from the rest of the interior by a stone wall about 1m in height, pierced at ground-level by a flue measuring 0.6m in width by 0.4m in height.

The building (YARROWS04 386) with the cruck-slots measures 9.2m from NW to SE by 4.8m over clay-bonded stone walls 0.6m in thickness; the SE gable stands to a height of about 2.6m, but that at the NW end has been reduced to the level of the wall-head (c.2.2m). There are opposed doorways in the NE and SW sides respectively, offset from centre towards the NW end, and that on the SW blocked. The interior is divided into three bays by two pairs of cruck-slots set 2.35m apart. The NW pair is situated 2.9m from that end about 0.6m above ground-level, the SE pair 2.5m from the gable about 1m above the ground. On each side of the SE bay the inner wall-face bears three joist sockets at a height of about 1.3m above ground-level.

In addition to the main buildings, a small structure (YARROWS04 399) is depicted roofed on the 1st edition map earlier map in the angle of a stone wall about 20m NW of the steading. It was unroofed by 1907 and only a short stretch of drystone wall and possibly the SW side of a doorway on its SE side are now visible beneath a pile of field-cleared stones. Nothing is now visible of either the boiler, which is depicted about 30m SSE of the steading, or what may have been a second small building or pen, which is depicted unroofed on the 2nd edition of the map on the N side of a stone wall about 30m W of the steading.

A number of clearance cairns situated in and around the improved fields of the steading are almost certainly all relatively late in date. They most probably originate before the middle of the 19th century, but some are possibly later, and all would have continued to be augmented when the fields were being cultivated. The clearance heaps take the form of discrete mounds of stones and boulders within the cultivated areas, more amorphous spreads within rough ground at the margins of the cultivated ground, and linear heaps along the edges of the fields.

In the Ordnance Survey Name Book (Caithness No. 13, p.261) Whiteleen is referred to as 'a small farm steading on the Thrumster estate, belonging to Mr B Innes'.

(YARROWS04 386-389, 399)

Visited by RCAHMS (JRS), 1 July 2004