Monument record MHG47992 - Ires Geo

NMRS Report: (15/06/2006 14:19:30)
ND34NE 39 ND 35679 45442

This farmstead is situated on the S side of a steep-sided coastal inlet called Ires Geo and comprises two buildings. The southernmost, which is a range (YARROWS04 609) aligned E and W, contains four compartments surviving to wall-head and gable height. The W end of the range contains a dwelling, with an entrance and flanking windows in its S side. Its interior is subdivided by a stone partition with a doorway at its S end. The W part of the dwelling contains a fireplace and a cupboard recess in its W gable. The E part of the dwelling is linked to what was probably a byre by a doorway set close to the S end of its E mid-gable. To either side of this doorway, on the dwelling side of the wall, there are ambries. The byre had a single entrance in its S wall and there are ambries in its E mid-gable and at the W end of its S side. The easternmost compartment has a single entrance in its S side and a fireplace in its E gable.
The second building, a threshing barn (YARROWS04 610) surviving to wall-head height, is situated immediately to the NE of the range. It contains two compartments and there is an outshot at the SE end, its walls reduced to rubble, all with single entrances on the SW. The NW compartment also has an entrance in its NE side, and its NW end is rounded, though there is no evidence that the building ever contained a kiln.
The farmstead is depicted roofed on both the 1st and 2nd editions of the OS 6-inch map (Caithness 1876, sheet xxx; 1907, sheet xxx). Nothing is now visible of a boiler, which is depicted standing on a stream about 40m W of the farmstead on the earlier map.
Iresgoe is described in the Ordnance Survey Name Book (Caithness No. 13, p. 287) as `Four Crofter's dwellings in the vicinity of the Goe or Creek from which they derive their name; occupied by James Falconer and others, the property of Mrs B Innes, Thrumster'.
(YARROWS04 609, 610)
Visited by RCAHMS (JRS) 10 August 2004.