Monument record MHG46900 - Thurso, Shore Street, Kippering House, Yard And Gatepiers

No further information available online at Canmore. <1>

High harled rubble wall encloses yard; simple gatepiers flank entrance. <2>

The yard is bounded to the north and west by a wall, with a broad gateway set at an angle on the corner, to the east by the west elevation of the cottage, 11a Shore St, and to the south by part of the north elevation of 11 Shore St and the full north elevation of the splittering shed. A gap between these two buildings, 1m wide, is filled by a brick wall supporting a toilet originally roofed. The yard is basically rectangular; the wall to the north and the shed north elevation to the south are parallel, giving an area 5.5m N-S by 15m E-W. The west wall extends 0.9m west of the building corner. The walls are 2.3m in height. While the wall west of the gateway and the first 2m east of the gateway are perpendicular and 0.4m thick, the section east of this measures 0.75m at the base and there is a marked batter to the inner wall face. This thicker section may be an earlier phase associated with the earlier alignment of the building which is now the splittering shed. The interpretative illustration on the Caithness Horizons panel shows a central gateway in the Shore Street wall, allowing a cart to back directly up to the upper floor doorway. The walls are pebbledashed with semi-circular capstones. The gateposts are square in section, angled inwards from the walls and capped by three square slabs of diminishing size. The original hinges of the gates are extant but the gates themselves have gone. Old photographs of the yard appear to indicate that gates were of wooden slats with a small doorway in the east half.

The setting of the yard gates in the corner of the yard can only have been possible after the demolition of adjacent buildings fronting on to Shore Street, extant in 1874. The yard and walling is therefore attributed to phase 2 of the use of the kippering complex. <3>