Monument record MHG47946 - Skeffell

NMRS Report: (08/11/2005)
ND24SE 81 29870 40087

The remains of this farmstead are situated in what is now a field of improved pasture on the left (E) bank of the Burn of East Clyth. Laid out in an L-shaped arrangement, it comprises a long range on the SW and a shorter building on the SE, with the vestiges of an enclosure in the angle on the NE. The range (YARROWS04 028) contains four compartments, the two at the NW end forming a dwelling. This dwelling measures 12m from NW to SE by 3.6m transversely within clay-bonded stone walls 0.6m in thickness. These still stand to their full height and there are skewputts retaining flat skews on the gables at all four corners of the dwelling. The two compartments are separated by a stone partition, which has a doorway at its SW end. In the NW compartment there is a fireplace in the NW gable, a window and doorway on the SW, and a second window on the NE. In the SE compartment there is a fireplace in the SE gable and a blocked doorway and two windows, one of them blocked, in the SW side. A doorway in the SW end of the SE gable originally led through into the third compartment, but it has been blocked and its SE side forms a cupboard recess. There is a doorway in the centre of the SW side of this compartment, but there are no windows. The compartment at the SE end of the range has a doorway in its SW side; other features include a small niche or ambry in the NW gable and a small blocked window in the SE gable, which is crow-stepped.
The building (YARROWS04 029) on the SE measures 6.1m from NE to SW by 4.6m transversely within clay-bonded stone walls 0.6m in thickness and surviving to the full height of their crow-stepped gables. A doorway 2.2m in width is offset to the SE in the SW side. Black staining on the wallheads indicates that the roof probably originally comprised large sandstone flags, the gaps between them sealed with bitumen. The NW corner of this building is linked to the rear of the range by a wall which measures 2.4m in length by 1.8m in height and it has a window midway along its length. An outshot attached to the NE end of the building measures 3.4m from NW to SE by 2.4m internally, and has had a lean-to roof. The doorway in its SE side, which is relatively intact, but the other two sides have been reduced to little more than grass-grown footings.
The farmstead is depicted roofed on both the 1st and 2nd editions of the OS 6-inch map (Caithness 1877, sheet xxxiv; 1907, sheet xxxiv), comprising the long range that is still visible and another building set at right-angles to it some 10m to the E. Nothing is now visible of the latter, and the structure that now lies adjacent to the SE corner of the range must have been built after 1907. It is also likely that the SSE end of the range was built or rebuilt at this time, since both it and the new structure are furnished with crow-stepped gables.
(YARROWS04 28, 29)
Visited by RCAHMS (JRS) 12 May 2004.