Building record MHG16650 - Top Barns, Mains of Applecross

A listed Hebridean Barn at Mains of Applecross.

See also:
NG74SW0039 Mains of Applecross Farm (parent)
NG74SW0016 "Crac" Barn
NG74SW0017 Smithy
NG74SW0019 Millpond Dam
NG74SW0024 Barn
NG74SW0025 Steading
Jhooper, 14/6/2002

Not in use, starting to deteriorate - HAW 5/2003

The barn was subject to a condition survey in 2009 when the Applecross Trust commisioned work to guage the potential of the surviving barn to be used as an orientation and interpretation point (see EHG4157 for more information). A description of the building was provided at the time of the survey:

Sometimes known as Hebridean barns, there are two barns aligned with one another in a north-south orientation located on raised ground above the main farms. Each barns has open sides which originally would have been infilled with wattle or woven panelts to mximise air movement from the direction of the prevailing wind, for the purposes of threshing corn and drying hay. Latterly it is understood that in the northernmost barn two deep pits were dug for silage. Both barns are belived to be of late eighteenth century adte (or possibly earlier), and are listed Category B. The earlier of the two barns is the nothernmost one. It is constructed of local Torridonian stone bound by shell-lime mortar, of five open bays one bay in depth, with the piers with battered faces built off large scarcement stones which project beyond the face of the walling. The second bay from the south has been narrowed to provide a doorway at a later date. The barn would have had a thatched roof orginally, but either in the late nineteeth, or the early twentieth century, the roof structure was replaced with a lightweight galvanised corrugated iron clad hipped roof with the collars (other than at the entrance bay) set high to allow a flail to be used. The trusses bear on a scarf-jointed perimeter beam, with beamfilling introduced on the inner face to provide seating for the beam. The original ventilated panels at the openings were replaced, probably at the same time, with roughly cut timber 'backs' from the sawmill, set vertically, of which few now survive. The pits dug into the floor of the barn are of different sizes and have a plinth of limestone blocks containing the mass concrete lining. Evidence of historic surfaces survive within the barn. <1>