Monument record MHG6713 - Muineil

NG80NW 18 84 06.

All that remains visible of the farmstead at Muineil, which was cleared by 1851, are the remains of two buildings and extensive traces of cultivation ridging. The buildings, one probably turf-built, the other of stone, are probably successive dwelling-houses. The remains are as follows:-
1: Situated on the gentle NW-facing slope of the Muineil promontory, some 30m from the foreshore, there is a low subrectangular turf-covered mound (NG 8443 0638). This is probably the wasted remains of a turf-built building. The mound measures 14m from NW to SE by 8m transversely and is up to 0.4m in height. On the NW side there is a rickle of stone and overlying the N side there is a clearance heap (4.2m by 1.7m). The entire area of the promontory, peripheral to the mound, has been cultivated, and, on the NE, single ridges have even been created between the rock outcrops. The ridging is generally grouped in swathes. On average the ridges are 2m wide, however, on the NW side of the promontory, there are a series (aligned WNW-ESE) of between 5.2m
and 5.9m in width.
2: Incorporated in a dog-leg of the 19th-century boundary-wall, which skirts the landward side of the Muineil promontory, there are the remains of a building (NG 8439 0635). It is rectangular on plan, constructed of coursed random rubble, and measures 7.5m from WSW to ENE by 4.6m transversely over walls 0.6m in thickness and up to 1.4m in height. The ENE and NNW walls, however, are reduced to little more than their turf-covered stone wall-footings. The SSE long-wall has a slight external batter. There is a blocked window towards the ENE end of the SSE wall (0.73m high and up to 0.3m wide), and what appears to be a small aumbry in the WSW wall (0.18m high, 0.35m wide and 0.3m deep).
The form of the window is rather unusual. It is internally splayed (0.25m wide externally, 0.4m internally), but the jambs are tapered and the sill is set only 0.3m above ground level. The building is shown as unroofed on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (1st edition of the Ordnance Survey map, Inverness-shire, sheet 77, 1876).
Visited by RCAHMS (IMS) 6 June 1991.
RCAHMS 1991.

A farmstead, comprising one unroofed building and a head-dyke are depicted on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Inverness-shire 1876, sheet lxxvii). The head-dyke is shown on the current edition of the OS 1:10000 map (1971).
Information from RCAHMS (AKK) 31 July 1996.

Smith, I M, 1991, Knoydart: an archaeological survey, 28, nos. 18.1 and 18.2; plate 18.2; sheet 2; location map (Text/Report/Fieldwork Report). SHG2668.