Monument record MHG28324 - Garbh-Allt

NC70SW 88 7247 0468

On W bank of Garbh-allt, at base of a steep S-facing hillside and incorporated into grounds of a modern bungalow, there are remains of a mill. The building is annotated as a 'corn mill' on 1st edition of OS 6-inch map (Sutherland 1879, sheet civ). It measures 8.4m from NW to SE by 4.1m transversely within faced-rubble walls, 0.8m thick, which still stand to gable height. Landscaping and dumping of rubbish has largely obscured any features of the building except on the SW side and SE end. The foundations of a door and a small window towards the E end are visible on the SW side, whilst a wheel-pit beyond the SE gable-end indicates that the mill was furnished with overshot wheel. There are traces of an outflow channel, draining back into the Garbh-allt to the S of the wheel-pit, but much of the lade to the N has been infilled and now drains off to the E. A small roofless building, which appears to be constructed over the lade, is situated about 20m to the NNE of the mill and may have been a pig-sty.
The 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map depicts three buildings, all roofed, and a lade at this location, of which only the mill survives. A track separates the mill building from a small building to the W which must have been subsumed in the landscaping, whilst the modern house occupies the site of the third building to the N. By the 2nd edition of the OS 6-inch map (Sutherland 1907, sheet civ) only the third building is depicted as roofed and the lade shortened by what may be the roofless remains of the pig-sty.
(ROG95 171-2)
Visited by RCAHMS (PM) 12 May 1995