Monument record MHG26655 - Ruined Farmstead, Badentarbat

NC01SW 24.05 0124 1043

This ruined courtyard farmsteading is situated about 300m NNW of Badentarbat House, on the E edge of the pre-crofting township. It lies directly on the line of the township head-dyke, in a gap 40m long, presumably the result of stone robbing. There is a corn-drying kiln, also built in a gap in the head-dyke, which may be contemporary with the farmstead, and between these two there are a number of small enclosures and two huts which may belong to the same phase.
The farmstead, at NC 0124 1043, consists of three buildings set around a rectangular yard which is closed off by a wall on the fourth (W) side. The buildings are all rectangular, built of faced-rubble walls 0.7m thick with square corners. The largest building is that on the E side (ACHIL94 433), which measures internally 9m N-S by 4.1m; its NE corner has suffered from stone-robbing and a pen has been built inside it. The building on the N side of the yard measures internally 8.2m in length by 2.8m in breadth (ACHIL94 432); there is a pen in this building too, in the E end, and a later wall runs off to the NW from the NW corner. The third building, forming the S side of the yard (ACHIL94 431) measures internally 7.6m E-W by 3.3m transversely, and it is terraced up slightly at the W end. All three buildings have been robbed to some extent, and their walls stand 0.5m high at most. Much of this damage may be due to the reuse of the farmstead as a sheepfold in the later 19th century: it is annotated thus on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Cromartyshire 1881, sheet iiia).
Only the E half of the kiln survives, but it appears to have measured 1.8m in diameter within a wall 0.8m thick embanked on the outer face with turf and standing 0.8m high. There is a barn attached on the W side, measuring 9.1m E-W by 5.1m over wall footings 0.7m thick (ACHIL94 428; NC 0123 1023).
There are a number of enclosures, many of them fragmentary, between the kiln and the farmstead, which may belong to this phase of settlement or to an earlier one. Amongst these enclosures there are two structures built against the head-dyke. The first, a hut 50m N of the kiln may be of late date, judging by its condition. It measures 3.3m E-W by 1.7m within rubble walls with square corners 0.6m thick and 0.9m high. It has an entrance on the E end and a small enclosure or possibly an earlier building on its N side (ACHIL94 429). The second hut, which is 20m S of the farmstead, measures internally 5.1m N-S by 2.4m transversely (ACHIL94 430). Once again, fragments of walling to the N of it suggest that it overlies an earlier structure.
The surveys of May (1758; SRO, RHP 85395) and Morrison (1775; SRO, E746/189) indicate that the settlement focus at Badentarbat, at least in the third quarter of the 18th century, was on the E side of the valley, in the area around this farmstead. The fragments of earlier structures noted above may be the remains of this settlement, demolished to make way for a more formally planned steading. If so, the farmstead had itself been abandoned by 1875, when it was surveyed by the OS, and converted to a sheepfold as noted above. The 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map also depicts both the huts (unroofed) and most of the enclosures now visible. A roofless building is shown at the approximate site of the kiln, but it is aligned N-S, rather than E-W, presumably a misinterpretation by the OS surveyors, as the kiln is unlikely to be later than the map.
(ACHIL94 428-433)
Visited by RCAHMS (SDB) 9 August 1994