Six Unidentified Structures - 3

Regular readers of The Diary will recall two entries back at the beginning of March which describe expeditions to an area to a valley to the east of Ben nan Ord to investigate four - and, later, six - small stone-walled structures (see previous post, here, and map of the area, here). We have had several people write in with ideas - many thanks to them - amongst which shooting butts was suggested. This seems unlikely, partly because this is township land rather than estate, they are sited in a fairly steep sided valley, and we have very few game birds here, red grouse being seen occasionally.

We were fortunate to be able to contact John Love, who is an expert on what look like similar stone structures on Rum. John says, I have no doubt that they are shielings, and similar to those I was finding in Rum (not spelt 'Rhum' I must stress). You mention a 'square' shape. Yes the first one illustrated does look a bit square but the other look more typically oval. The most interesting point is the mound on which each of the structures sit. I took this to mean that older structures lay underneath and this has been confirmed to some extent from excavations on Skye. I suggested that the oldest structures were oval and built with corbelled stone layers, much like bee-hives which can still be seen in early Christian structures on the Garvellachs, and Skellig |Michael. Some of the Rum ones survived thus but few were actually still roofed. These tended not to have much mounding underneath. The squarish ones on the other had tended to show much mounding from a long history of previous structures. Latterly the roofs would have been a frame of timber and built over with turf. The shielings would have been built near freshwater for convenience (washing utensils etc) and I found they were also built near convenient supplies of stone blocks, near a scree slope or wherever. There might be small peat cuttings nearby but that would have been for domestic use only while the shielings were occupied in the summer (only). They would not cut and dry peat so far from the settlements I am convinced - so shielings are the most likely explanation. It was usually the women and children who tended the stock, well away from the growing crops down at the permanent settlement where the men remained to cultivate etc. So size is not particularly important and some of mine in Rum had smaller cells attached which I suspect were for storing utensils rather than sleeping. Shielings also tended to be located near areas of good grazing and in sheltered hollows so were often built in small clusters. Some I found were definitely altered in more modern times (usually quite easy to detect) which I took to be pens for a ewe and lamb. I doubt any of yours or mine would be big enough to be for bulls! I think lambing pens like that were called 'cobbing pens' in the Borders so it might have been a habit that was brought into the area quite late, after the Clearances, by Border shepherds brought in with the Blackface sheep. Prior to this the sheep breed was probably mostly a dark coloured Hebridean breed (Soay sheep on St Kilda are very much more primitive) which are becoming a bit more popular again out here in Uist.

Helen Ferguson at the Sonachan Hotel, who has lived here all her life and whose family farmed the area to the immediate north of the location, wrote in to say that she thought they were used for keeping bulls and tups. She says, We have a few of them on Achosnich estate. Uncle Neilie's bull house is in amongst the woodlands in Sonachan and then there is one in between the shians on the way over to Sanna that was Archina's father's. My grandfather Grigadale's were over somewhere near Garr a’ dhal, and the Ormsaigbeg ones were up near the twin lochs.

The ‘in by’ barns were needed for milking cows, horses and young beasts.

There would have been ‘township’ beast and the township would take turns in families looking after them and checking on them.

They did have department bulls too in my mother's lifetime but I’m not sure when they arrived and I would imagine they would still need to be separated but with shelter. They couldn’t take the chance of them being too close by, and they would be using the ‘in by’ grazing for the other livestock.

Many thanks indeed to everyone who wrote, and especially to John and Helen. Helen runs the Sonachan Hotel, website here, and John's book Rum: A Landscape without Figures, is available here.