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Cromarty Townlands Barn
Horse wheel in front garden Trench 2, August '06.
Townlands Barn is a grade A listed building (No. HB23695), situated in an area once known as Sandilands which belonged to the Clunes family. It is thought to be the earliest surviving house in Cromarty, dating from the late 17th c., although its actual date of construction is not known for certain. Sandilands House became known as Townlands in the 19th c. and was, until recently, used as a barn.
This excavation is one of a series commissioned by the Highland Buildings Preservation Trust (HBPT) with the benefit of a Project Planning Grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund to inform proposals to undertake repairs and conservation work to Townlands Barn, Cromarty. It offers an initial briefing on archaeological trial trenching carried out by Highland Archaeology Services Ltd during August 2006.
The present restoration project offers a rare opportunity to improve our knowledge of historic houses in the Highlands, and of the development of Cromarty as a town. The barn also has significance for the community in Cromarty itself – it is fairly central in the village and was once a focus of activity with the dairying and the farm-work that centred here. Older Cromarty residents have many stories of this building and one objective of the current project must be to collect and record these.
During this initial investigation, we cut six trial trenches, two inside the building, three in the front garden and one in the rear garden.
In Trench 2, we uncovered the surface of a horse-wheel, which is assumed to be that shown in the c.1935 aerial photograph (see below). There remain very few records about this type of horse wheel and we hope to return to completely excavate and record it.
In Trench 3, we uncovered a rough, stony surface into which was set a curved kerb. Though only a small portion was visible, this appears to be an earlier horse wheel--the remains are at a level below Trench 2's horse wheel and have a different diameter and centre than that of the horse wheel in Trench 2.
Inside the house, in Trench 5, we recovered several leather shoes or parts of shoes, including a worn sole that had been replaced and leather off-cuts. The provisional interpretation is that these may relate to a period when shoemaking and repairing was taking place with no wooden floor laid in this part of the barn. Also inside, in Trench 6, we recovered several small pins-presumably for sewing- and revealed the fragmented remains of a former flagstone floor.
There is much more to investigate at Townlands Barn and we look forward to returning in the near future!
C. 1935 aerial photo showing Townlands Barn and horse wheel, shoe fragment(inset: scale in cm).
 Trench 3, earlier horse wheel-curved kerb and stony surface.
 Trench 6, remains of flagstone floor, and pins (inset).
Trench 4, rear garden--house foundation stones revealed.
Trench 4, rear garden-yard cobbles.
Click here for the Cromarty Townlands Barn Interim Report.
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