Monument record MHG28168 - Garbh-Allt

NC70NW 152 7277 0561

This farmstead, which comprises two buildings, a kiln, and associated enclosures, is situated on flat boggy ground between the public road and the Garbh-allt. The N building (ROG95 340) has two compartments and measures 11.2m from E to W by 3.5m within faced-rubble walls 0.6m thick and up to 1.5m high. The W compartment, presumably a byre, is drained by a channel which feeds into an oval midden-hollow and the burn. A second drain along the N side of the building also feeds into the midden and the burn.
Immediately S of this building there is a rectangular enclosure with a building (ROG95 173) on its E side. The building measures 7.1m from N to S by 2.5m transversely within faced-rubble walls 0.8m thick and 0.3m high. What may be opposed entrances in the E and W sides suggest that this building may have been a barn. About 50m to the SW there is a kiln (ROG95 174, NC 7272 0559), which is set within a mound measuring 3.8m in diameter by 0.5m in height, and surrounded by a shallow ditch. The ditch is interrupted on the SW side where the flue may have been; the kiln-chamber has been obscured by collapse. To the SW of the kiln there is a polygonal enclosure defined by a boulder-built wall and the whole area is enclosed by a turf-and-stone dyke. Only the N building is depicted as roofed on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Sutherland 1879, sheet xcvi), but by the 2nd edition (Sutherland 1906, sheet xcvi) it is shown as roofless and annotated as a 'sheepfold'.
On a well-drained, but peat-covered, terrace to the W of the road, at NC 7265 0570, there is a small cairn which measures 2m in diameter and 0.3m in height.
(ROG95 173-4, 340, 947)
Visited by RCAHMS (PM) 12 May 1995