Monument record MHG48006 - North Yarrows

NMRS Report: (30/06/2005)
ND34SW 149 31012 44450

The remains of this farmstead are situated in what is now a cultivated field about 190m N of the disused steading (ND34SW 148) that now bears the name North Yarrows. All that is now visible is a single compartment of what has evidently been a range that once extended both to the E and W. The compartment measures 5.6m from E to W by 6.2m transversely over clay-bonded walls 0.6m in thickness and up to 2.3m in height. In the S wall there is a splayed window, complete to its lintel, and the present E end of the S wall appears to be the W side of an entrance. The W side of the compartment contains a blocked doorway at its S end and E side of the compartment has been a partition wall with a gap at both its S and N ends. Nothing is now visible of the original E end of the range and the W end has been reduced to a grass-grown spread of rubble about 7m in length. Immediately to the N is an oval mound of unknown date and purpose. It measures 12m from E to W by 6m transversely and 0.5m in height.
The range is depicted roofed on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Caithness 1877, sheet xxix). North Yarrows is described in the Ordnance Survey Name Book (Caithness No. 13, p. 237) as `two small farms occupied by Mr Mowat and John Gunn. The property of Bently Innes of Thrumster'. It is not clear where the second of the farms referred to was situated. On the 2nd edition of the map (1907, sheet xxix) the central part of the range is shown roofed, the W part is shown unroofed, and the E part is not shown at all.
(YARROWS04 313)
Visited by RCAHMS (JRS) 15 June 2004