A couple of weeks ago, while walking in one of the remoter parts of western West Ardnamurchan, we stumbled across the remains of four small stone structures. They were strung out at equal distances in an almost straight line across a two-hundred metre section of the valley of the Allt Garbh Dhalach, where it runs along the base of the northeast slope of Beinn nan Ord, at approximately NM447645 - see map here. The top picture, with one of the structures in the foreground, looks southeast towards the peak of Dubh Chreag in the right distance.
All are similar in that they have a square shape with rounded corners. The remaining walls are about a metre high but, since many stones have obviously fallen, they may originally have been twice that height. The first one, in the top picture, is the smallest. All have in common that bracken grows thickly inside the structure.The above photo shows the second, lower down the slope. Most are surrounded by flattish land which, in summer, is covered with bracken, a sign that the soil is quite good.
The third, on the other side of the stream, is the most substantially built but, again, its floor area is small. 
The fourth structure is the best preserved and has relatively little moss growing on the stones, suggesting it is the most recent. While the others show little sign of an entrance, the nearest wall of this one may have had one.
This final picture looks down into the fourth structure to show some of the interior.The nearest settlements are Achosnich and Ormsaigbeg, each a good hour's hard walk away.
One possibility is that these are small sheiling houses, occupied in summer by the women and children when they took the animals into the hills to keep them off the croft land while crops were grown. Against this is their small internal dimensions, hardly enough for an adult to lie down, and the way they are all separated from their neighbours by about 50m, with two on each side of the stream.
Only a suggestion John. They may be a kind of kleat for air drying and preserving dairy produce and the like from the summer sheilings. Any sign of larger habitations nearby?
ReplyDeleteHi, Dave. No sign of habitation anywhere near. There is what I have always taken to be a large summer sheiling, Reidh-dhail, just over a kilometre to the west - that it was a sheiling has been confirmed by local people. The idea of a kleat is a good one - but why are they 50m apart, on two sides of the burn - unless they were only used for a short time, and then abandoned, so another had to be built?
ReplyDeleteThe size is a bit of a puzzle, but the shape looks very like the shielings pictured in Robert Dodghson, The Age of the Clans, Historic Scotland 2002, pp 28-29.
ReplyDeleteRe location: Dodgshon says [p 29] that grazing lands 'could be ...shared with other townships', which might just perhaps explain the distance between each structure, and from the known sheiling. Room for each little hut owner to tether their cows nearby to be milked, perhaps, and to store the output safely, before letting their cows loose to graze higher up the hills again?
People need not have slept next to their animals, but they'd hardly want to carry buckets of milk long distances before processing them.
Are these sitting on particularly airy spots Jon? Drying peats in a particularly wet environment is yet another maybe? Again that would be for sheiling use in summer? Sounds like some kind of drying or storing area but a kilometre is a long distance away.
ReplyDeleteYour explanation, Anonymous, certainly fits all the facts. There are, however, bigger and better pieces of land in the same valley, no distance from these structures, which don't have anything on them. The linear nature of the structures is also intriguing.
ReplyDeleteCertainly an airy spot, Dave, but - as you say - don't think it's peat cutting as it would be a terrible journey carrying them back to Reidh-dhail, Achosnich or Ormsaigbeg, and unnecessary as there is peat nearer them.
I'm putting up another post tomorrow with a little more information but without any sensible suggestions!
I think they are just ‘The Bull house’ and ‘the Tup house’ , they need to be kept away from the rest of the stock until it’s time for them to be ‘Put out’. We have quite a few of each on Achosnich Estate, now just referred to as Sonachan Farm. There is one in SOnachan woodlands that was uncle Neills Bull house. One on the sian on the way over to Sanna and some out towards Garradal. We used to be told to stop complaining about being sent to bring the cows home from the ‘in by’. We were lucky it wasn’t the tup house or Bull house we were being sent to check on. Helen.
ReplyDeleteHave you thought they may be shooting butts?
ReplyDeleteOn the North York Moors they would look exactly like shooting butts
ReplyDelete