Monument record MHG6068 - Unish

NG26NW 1.00 240 655.

NG 239 658. Unish/Bail an Tailleir (Tailor's Town), Unish: shown as a township in 1824 (Information from W Johnson's Map of Skye, 1824), still occupied 1901 (OS 6"map, Inverness-shire, 2nd ed., 1904) but deserted before 1955 (OS 1"map, 7th Ser) Bail an Tailleir is shown as deserted before c.1875 (W Johnson's Map of Skye, 1824)
Visited by OS (A C) 18 January 1961.

Unish comprises a solidly-built 2-storey house, with a range of farm buildings, and another house and yards, all ruinous, but walls standing to roof height.
Bail an Tailleir, a depopulated run-rig township, lies S of Unish and comprises about 24 ruined houses. There are several outbuildings, small enclosures, and extensive areas of lazy-beds.
Visited by OS (ASP) 10 May 1961.

Unish is first documented when it was leased in life rent to Donald Macleod for 306 merks in 1708 (R C Macleod 1929, II). In 1788 a report to the British Fisheries Society found 10 married couples, 17 children, 30 unmarried adults, and two widowed adults in a total population of 69 (SRO GD 9/3, p.273). Unish was sold with the rest of Waternish in 1796 (R C Macleod 1929 Vol.II). The clearance of the township was certainly effected by the time of the first edition of the Ordnance Survey map of 1880 (Island of Skye &c., Inverness-shire, 1880, sheet v), when only a single house was in occupation. The remains include an 18th-century tacksman's house, an adjacent 18th-19th century farmstead and associated buildings and enclosures, the township, various isolated farmsteads and buildings, a hut-circle, lazy-bedding, globular fields and sequence of boundary banks.

1.01 NG 2374 6646 Enclosure (261)
1.02 NG 2356 6646 Building; Enclosure; Field-System; Kiln: Corn-drying (Possible) (262, 267)
1.03 NG 2356 6676 Building; Enclosure (263)
1.04 NG 2352 6683 Building; Pen (264-5)
1.05 NG 2346 6648 Building; Enclosure (266, 268)
1.06 NG 2406 6602 Farmstead; Huts (269-71, 273-276)
1.07 NG 238 655 Township (277-292, 303-343, 345-7, 349-353)
1.08 NG 239 658 Farmstead; Buildings (355, 358-375)
1.09 NG 2392 6582 Tacksman's House (356-357)
1.10 NG 2402 6613 Building (272)
1.11 NG 2440 6574 Building (293)
1.12 NG 2427 6574 Building; Enclosure (294-5)
1.13 NG 242 653 Shieling-huts; Enclosure (296-301)
1.14 NG 2367 6574 Building (354)
1.15 NG 2347 6554 Hut-circle; Bank (344)
1.16 NG 2348 6569 Building (348)
1.17 NG 239 654 Cultivation Remains
1.18 NG 24 65 Boundary Banks

Visited by RCAHMS (PJD) 1 November 1990.

A township, comprising two roofed, thirty-six unroofed buildings and seven enclosures is depicted on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Inverness-shire, Isle of Skye 1880, sheet v). Thirty-two unroofed buildings and four enclosures are shown on the current edition of the OS 1:10560 map (1968).
Information from RCAHMS (AKK) 6 November 1996.