Cruck Cottage, excluding 20th century timber boarded addition to southwest, Fingask Drive, Kirkhill, Kirkhill, Highland

Description

Probably second half of the 18th century, with 19th and early 20th century alterations to the interior. Single storey, 3-bay traditional cruck-framed cottage with steeply pitched and piended corrugated iron roof covering some remains of old thatch. In accordance with Section 1 (4A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) (Scotland) Act 1997 the following is excluded from the listing: 20th century timber boarded building adjoined to the southwest.

The building is partially submerged in ground that has gradually been built up around the outer walls. It is built with coursed rubble with large and squared rubble quoins. There are two jointed and pegged curved crucks, set into walls and ending above ground, with overlaying of purlins and cabbers. The doorway is situated to the southeast elevation to the far right with two small square window openings to the left with two-pane timber windows. There is a small window opening to northeast end elevation.

The interior was seen in 2015. The cottage is subdivided into 3 rooms. The walls are flush-pointed to the interior and painted with some surviving plaster. There is a hanging lum set between the north and middle rooms, which has been modified in the 19th century to serve as the flue for an inserted brick hearth and fireplace below. The internal subdividing walls are of wattle and daub construction (with straw and dung or clay evident) and are plastered and whitewashed.

Statement of Interest

The Cruck Cottage at Kirkhill is an outstanding and rare example of a traditional dwelling, once common to the Highlands and the northeast of Scotland, but now extremely rare. While there has been some alteration to the interior the building has not been substantially changed since the early 20th century and there is extensive survival of late 18th and early 19th century fabric and construction methods. The building has a tangible connection with 18th century life in the Highlands and is thought to have an association with the Jacobite Risings.

Kirkhill Cottage is constructed using traditional methods which are characteristic of cruck-framed cottage dwellings of the 18th and 19th centuries. The extent of 18th century fabric is substantial and its survival informs our knowledge and understanding of Scottish vernacular architecture.

The crucks are intact and are seen part way down the wall with rafters that rise from the wallhead. Some old thatch is found here at the wallhead to the interior.

The survival of 18th century fabric to the interior, including walling, plaster and the partially surviving hanging lum, is of significant interest.

The hanging lum was modified around the late 19th century and the lum itself was converted to a chimney flue when a brick fireplace and hearth was inserted below.

Sources on traditional building methods suggest that hanging chimneys were an improvement which spread to east-central and northeast Scotland in the second half of the 18th century (See Fenton, p18.). They reached the more northerly parts in the late 18th and early 19th centuries and the spread of this feature in rural dwellings is compatible with the dating Kirkhill Cottage and its location in Inverness-shire.

The rectangular plan of the cottage, as evident on the 1st Edition Ordnance Survey map (surveyed 1868), is unchanged and adds to the building's special interest. A byre was not incorporated into the plan which also points to a later 18th century date of construction.

The building is situated in its own small plot of land, formerly part of a group of cottages of similar date and type, but is now set to the rear of a mid-20th century housing estate located to the east and south east. To the north there is a shelter belt of trees which border a field which is likely to date to the late 18th or early 19th century and is contemporary with the building. While there is no pattern of crofting settlement remaining, the cottage is still partly in a semi-rural setting.

The traditional single storey crofter's cottage was once common to the Highlands and is a building type that is of regional interest.

Kirkhill is a rural village situated to the northwest of Inverness, near the shores of the Beauly River and Beauly Firth. The cruck cottage at Kirkhill appears on the 1st Edition Ordnance Survey map (surveyed in 1868) as part of a group of similar buildings referred to as 'Groam Cottages' which was likely built in the second half of the 18th century to resettle crofters scattered elsewhere in the parish. This group of buildings still appeared in the same arrangement on the 2nd Edition Ordnance Survey map of 1907. The Groam Cottages grouping no longer survives and this cottage now sits in isolation behind a mid-20th century council housing estate in Fingask Drive.

According to information held in by the local authority, the land and existing housing surrounding the cottage was acquired by the authority and developed for social housing in the 1940s. The local authority allowed the last tenant to remain at the property indefinitely, without payment, until their death. The last tenant was named as 'Miss MacDonald' and her family's association with the cottage was known locally to be long-standing. It is said that in the aftermath of Culloden (after 1746), the MacDonald family, who were resident at the time, hid two Jacobite fugitives. By 1989, the property was known to be uninhabited.

The Ordnance Survey name book for Inverness-shire mainland (vol. 52), provides some information on the appearance and ownership of the Groam Cottages buildings in 1876-78. The cottages are described as being all one storey high, thatched and in ordinary repair, with John Fraser Esq of Achnagairn and D Cameron Esq of Clunes as proprietors. The estate of Achnagairn was held by the Frasers of Lovat and latterly Belladrum during the 18th century (see 'Achnagairn' National Records of Scotland, B59/38/6/187).

Crofting or 'ferm-toun' settlements fulfilled the individual and communal needs of crofters, while also providing for their basic need for shelter and for livestock and crop management. During the 18th century old farming traditions were gradually replaced in an agricultural revolution as significant for rural landscapes as was the industrial revolution for urban development. In the Highlands, the result of this improvement was full-scale estate clearances which started in the 18th century and continued into the 19th century, contributing to a dramatic change to crofting and the rural landscape. Land and settlement patterns were comprehensively reorganised. The political background of the Jacobite Rebellions during the 18th century would have also had a considerable effect on the traditional Highland way of life. Therefore the re-settlement of crofters to Groam Cottages in Kirkhill Parish is likely and the survival of Kirkhill is remarkable in this context.

The single-storey croft house or cottage, constructed using the same traditional methods over an extensive period, was a mainstay of 17th, 18th and 19th rural settlements in Scotland. Their survival into the 21st century is now extremely rare and those which still evidence traditional construction techniques, including cruck-framing, are now exceptional. There are around 40 listed examples of cruck-framed buildings in various states of survival, and there are very few of these which survive with their historic interiors largely intact and which may contain a hanging lum or box-bed recesses. A small number of important examples survive, including Moirlanich Longhouse, Killin (LB8263 - owned by the National Trust for Scotland), Briar Cottage, Lochearnhead (LB4173) and Auchtavan Cottage, Aberdeenshire (LB50074).

External Links

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