Monument record MHG10412 - Bad Lurgainn

NC60NE 18 6940 0652

Remains of 18th/19th century depopulation.
Visited by OS (JM) 3 October 1980.

This township, which is situated on a bracken- and heather-covered ridge between two unnamed tributaries of the Torbreck Burn, comprises five buildings (ROG95 199, 300, 302-4) and a kiln-barn (ROG95 301), and lies within an earth-and-stone head-dyke enclosing an area measuring 420m by up to 170m. The buildings range from 6.8m by 2.9m (ROG95 304) to 10.2m by 2.8m (ROG95 199) within faced-rubble footings up to 0.8m in thickness and 0.4m in height; one building (ROG95 302) has two compartments. The largest and best preserved building (ROG95 199), which lies beside a two-phase enclosure, may represent the last period of construction in the township. Another late building (ROG95 304) overlies part of a byre-house, which measures at least 13.4m by 2.7m internally, with a byre-drain along one side of the interior and an external drain to carry water away from the upslope side. The corn-drying kiln is let into a knoll and is accompanied on the ENE by a barn; the bowl measures 2.4m in diameter.
Two buildings lie outwith the head-dyke. The first (ROG95 354, NC 6942 0661), which may have been an illicit still, is tucked away on the NE bank of the burn to the NNE of the township. While the structure of this building (3.6m by 2.8m internally) is not unusual, its discrete location adjacent to the burn may indicate its former function. The second building, a turf-walled hut (ROG95 198, NC 6922 0660), lies immediately N of the head-dyke.
Traces of ridging are visible within the head-dyke, largely coinciding with bracken- and grass-covered ground and a patch of improved ground shown on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Sutherland 1879, sheet xcvi). Two small cairns, measuring up to 4m in diameter and 0.3m in height, lie within the scatter of buildings.
The 1st and 2nd editions of the OS 6-inch map (Sutherland 1907, sheet xcvi), both depict most of the head-dyke and four of the structures (ROG95 199, 301-2, 304) as unroofed.
(ROG95 198-9, 300-4, 354)
Visited by RCAHMS (DCC) 15 May 1995