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Skye, Bualintur

Croft(S) (19th Century), Field System (Post Medieval), Head Dyke (19th Century), Lazy Beds(S), Township (Post Medieval)

Site Name Skye, Bualintur

Classification Croft(S) (19th Century), Field System (Post Medieval), Head Dyke (19th Century), Lazy Beds(S), Township (Post Medieval)

Canmore ID 119582

Site Number NG42SW 10

NGR NG 4065 2080

NGR Description Centred on NG 4065 2080

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/119582

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
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Administrative Areas

  • Council Highland
  • Parish Bracadale
  • Former Region Highland
  • Former District Skye And Lochalsh
  • Former County Inverness-shire

Activities

Field Visit (1 November 2016 - 2 November 2016)

That the township of Bualintur was in existence in the 17th and 18th centuries is indicated by the references to ‘Bollitoure’ and ‘Boulinlour’ in rental records held by the Macleods of Dunvegan (Macleod 1938, 151-2; 1939, 79). That said, none of the structures identified in the recent HES survey can be ascribed to a date earlier than the 19th century and it appears that the pre-crofting settlement was removed before the construction of croft houses and the establish of rectilinear crofts in the middle of the 19th century. Each of the croft houses has been arranged along the W side of a trackway, and constructed on a platform set into and along the slope. The well preserved examples are of a similar size and are constructed in lime-mortared rubble, and it is therefore likely that they were built to a model stipulated by the estate; they bear a marked similarity to the Macleod’s township on St Kilda, constructed during the 1860s (Gannon and Geddes 2015, 103-4).

By 1877, when the Ordnance Survey mapped the area, the township comprised 16 roofed buildings and one unroofed building, belonging to perhaps 11 or so individual crofts (Inverness-shire (Isle of Skye) 1882, Sheet XLIV). Later developments within the township shown on the 2nd edition of the OS 6-inch map (Inverness-shire (Isle of Skye) 1903, Sheet XLIV) included the construction of a school and footbridge before 1901 (1903). Later constructions included two new houses (Rowan Cottage and the Post Office) which are visible on a vertical aerial photograph taken in 1948 (NCAP CPE Scot 372, 4121). Both of these buildings replaced an earlier structure.

In 1877, the infield land amounted to some 16 hectares enclosed within a relatively slight turf-and-stone head-dyke, which overlies and truncates the remains of earlier lazy-bed cultivation. This is particularly apparent on the NW where a large area of relict lazy-bed cultivation (centre NG 405 212) survives. The 1948 aerial photograph indicates that this once extended to the N at least as far as the Allt Fearna. While lazy-bedding extends across most of the higher enclosed ground at Bualintur, the area near the footbridge (centre NG 407 210) appears to have been cultivated with the plough and provided with drainage. In contrast, the S part of the infield has been cultivated in a series of small linear plots arranged up and down the slope, some of which have well-formed lynchets at their lower end. The majority of these (centre NG 406 205) are enclosed within a curvilinear head-dyke which is clearly earlier than the linear head dyke depicted on the 1882 OS map. Indeed, there is evidence to suggest that a separate parcel of land measuring just over 2ha in extent was defined on the W and NW by the curvilinear dyke which dropped down the slope from its NE end and extended in a gentle arc towards the river. At its SW end the dyke followed the top edge of a stream gully downslope past the farmstead and on to the sea-shore.

Visited by HES Survey and Recording (GFG) 1-2 November 2016

Note

A township, comprising sixteen roofed, three unroofed buildings and two enclosures is depicted on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Inverness-shire, Isle of Skye 1879, sheet xliv). Five roofed, eight unroofed buildings and two enclosures are shown on the current edition of the OS 1:10560 map (1965).

Information from RCAHMS (AKK) 12 November 1996.

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