Monument record MHG34588 - CANNA, GARRISDALE

Created automatically by NMRS Register Utility
User: Admin, Date: Wed 13 Oct 2004
----
NG20NW 44 2163 0532

For archaeological landscape between NG 2070 0508 and NG 2202 0591, see NG20NW 129.00.

The farm of Garrisdale is the most westerly on Canna and is shown on an estate map of Canna dated to 1805. This map shows not only the extent of the farm, bounded in part by a now ruinous wall, but also the area of ground which was then under cultivation (for which, see NG20NW 129.00). The stony banks which defined its fields and enclosures can still be seen, together with traces of lazy-bed cultivation, other banks and numerous small huts and mounds, many of which may belong to an earlier phase of use. Three roofed buildings are also depicted on this map; two lie on the E side of a burn and the other on the W. One building here was still occupied by a herdsman in 1841 but by 1881 this had been abandoned and the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Argyllshire, sheet lix, 1881) shows only a string of five unroofed buildings straddling the burn. This depiction is undoudtedly a schematic representation of the three buildings that survive today, the largest of which has been extended and modified for use as a fank. The three buildings all probably belong to a farmstead, which replaced the township buildings, and are all situated on the E side of the burn. The longest building was a byre and lies to the S with a later outshot at its SSE end. It measures 14.2m from NNW to SSE by 4.1m transversely within a drystone wall 1.4m in thickness and 1.5m in height. Its entrances are located centrally in the end walls, and traces of a blocked doorway can be seen towards the S end of the E side wall. A byre drain extends the length of the building between the two entrances and is edged with laid slabs. The height of the walls are raised with wire supported on iron stanctions, when the building was modified for use as a fank; some of the surviving stanctions have been manufactued from straightened horseshoes. The second building lies immediately to the NNW and is also of drystone construction. It measures 11.5m from NNW to SSE by 5.9m within a wall 1.4m in thickness and up to 1m in height; the S end and part of the E side have been removed. The final building is the smallest of the three and measures 7.1m from NE to SW by 4.7m transversely within a wall 1.2m in thickness and 1.2 in height. Although it comprises two compartments, there is no obvious access to the SW end, suggesting that this partition wall may be a more recent insertion.
(Canna 564-6).
Visited by RCAHMS (IF, ARG), 5 April 1995.
J L Campbell 1984.