Monument record MHG47648 - Old Ardtornish, Boat House

NMRS Report: (04/11/2004)
NM64SE 37 69371 43098

The following sites were surveyed in 2002 (boathouses) and 2003 (fish traps) as part of a wider project to study the maritime landscape of the Sound of Mull.
(NM 693 430) The walls of this boathouse are of snecked rubble, with large undressed corner stones. It has a slate roof, probably not original, and a segmental arch of slabbed voussoirs. In its N wall is a slit opening of the type common in Highland barns, and there are small rectangular openings in both gables. For most of its length the building is cut into the steep hillside.
It stands at the western edge of the bay of Inninbeg, where the gravelly sand has given way to shingle. On the adjacent beach is a semi-circular fish trap (see above, Inninbeg). A pair of concrete cottages of 1879 stand to the E of a walled enclosure. In front of the boathouse a strip of beach has been cleared of large stones. On the S side of this are the remains of a simple pier extending down to low water mark, constructed of boulders, presumably once with a smooth top of smaller stones, now lost.
Old maps show a path leading from the boathouse to the walled garden and up the hill to the steading and house. Another path zig-zags up the steep hill behind the boathouse to join the tree-lined avenue which runs between the site of Ardtornish House and Ardtornish Castle.
Report lodged with Highland SMR.
Sponsor: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.
P Martin and C Martin 2003