Monument record MHG26132 - Township, Blair

Thumbnail photo of Blair township
Wester Ross Project - Cathy Dagg, 02/04

NC00NW 40 centred on 0060 0990

0.01 Blair Building; Enclosure NC 0031 0963 (ACHIL94 446)
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Depopulated township consisting of low rubble footings and sections of dyke on the heather covered hill ground west of Badentarbet. One modern house has been built among these features, some of which now lie within its garden area.
Wester Ross Project - Cathy Dagg, 23/03/04
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The settlement at Blair lies immediately to the W of the township of Badentarbat (NC01SW 24.00), and between it and the modern crofting settlement of Polbain. The core of the settlement is situated at NC 0060 0990, to the N of a modern bungalow, comprising a cluster of seven buildings set amongst a group of small enclosures. To the W and to the S there are extensive areas of lazy-bed cultivation partly enclosed by head-dykes. Four buildings lie apart from the main settlement, three to the W and NW and one to the SW (NC00NW 40.01), the latter well beyond the limit of the lazy-beds.
Four of the buildings at the core of the settlement measure internally between 8.2m and 9.8m in length, and between 2.9m and 3.6m in breadth (ACHIL94 437, 440, 442-3); two are considerably larger, measuring 11.3m by 2.9m (ACHIL94 438) and 12.3m by 3.6m (ACHIL94 441), and one is much smaller, 5.1m in length by 3.1m in breadth (ACHIL94 439). They are all constructed with faced-rubble walls 0.6m to 0.7m thick with square corners which now stand 0.6m high at most; they are aligned N-S or NNW-SSE and where an entrance is visible it is invariably on the E side. Two buildings have an outshot built onto one end (ACHIL94 438 and 444), four buildings, including the two largest, are divided into two compartments (ACHIL94 438, 440-1 and 444) and three of these (ACHIL94 438, 440 and 441) have a byre drain in the smaller SSE compartment, running out through the end of the building, not out the side as at Badentarbat (NC01SW 24.01).
Around these buildings there are several small enclosures bounded by stony banks. In the corner of one of these, at NC 0061 0986, there is a subcircular pit measuring 1.8m in diameter within a turf bank 0.6m thick and 0.2m high. A number of similar features have been recorded at Badentarbat, and it has been suggested that they are potato storage pits.
There are three buildings to the W and NW of the main group. That to the NW stands in the heather about 25m above the head-dyke at NC 0054 1003 (ACHIL94 436). It measures 7.2m NE-SW by 3.4m transversely within faced-rubble walls 0.6m thick and 0.3m high. It has an entrance in the SE side. The second building is situated in deep heather about 120m to the W of the main cluster at NC 0047 0992, on the S side of a stretch of bank. Aligned N-S, it measures 8.5m in length by 4.1m in breadth over walls 0.6m thick which stand up to 0.3m high. There is a small oval pen immediately to the S, and a short length of bank runs alongside the W wall. The third building is situated 150m to the WNW of the second, at the base of a steep slope at NC 0032 0995 (ACHIL94 435). It measures 5.5m N-S by 3.3m transversely within a wall reduced to a stony bank 0.3m high.
On the ground to the W and S of the main concentration of buildings there are about 12ha of lazy-bed cultivation in a roughly triangular area enclosed on the N by a head-dyke, on the SE by the dyke bounding Badentarbat, and on the W by a minor burn (although there is one small area of unenclosed cultivation beyond the burn at NC 0042 0968). Within this area a few stretches of bank hint at internal subdivision of the cultivated area, or perhaps at changes in the limit of cultivation, but no clear picture emerges from these fragmentary remains.
Roy's map (Roy 1747-55) appears to depict cultivated ground in the area to the W of Badentarbat, but there is none shown either on Peter May's more detailed map of the Barony of Coigach, surveyed a few years later in 1758 (SRO, RHP 85395), or on Morrison's plan of 1775 (SRO, E746/189). It is clear from May, though, that the land at Blair lay within the township of Badentarbat, as the boundary between Badentarbat and Dornie is marked along the burn which now forms the SW edge of the lazy-bed cultivation. If Blair was not yet established as a settlement in the mid 18th century, it was almost entirely abandoned by the late 19th. The 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Cromartyshire 1881, sheet iiia) names the site 'Blar' and shows all seven buildings in the main group and two of the outlying structures to the NW (ACHIL 435 and 436), all roofless. The only roofed building depicted is the small cottage which still stands at NC 0040 0996.
(ACHIL94 435-45)
Visited by RCAHMS (SDB) 9 August 1994
W Roy 1747-55