Auchindrain for Argyll

Ruins (Building C)

Near to Building D are the footings of Building C, a small sub-rectangular building that is thought to have been a house.

MacNicol’s House (Building D)

MacNicol’s House is the oldest surviving tenant farmer’s longhouse or byre dwelling at Auchindrain. It was largely rebuilt by the Museum in 1992 but still retains many original features. The building is constructed of undressed local stone and was originally built with drystone walls. The northern long-wall has an external pronounced bend, 0.2m to the south, at the position between the kitchen and the byre. The wall then continues on its original alignment to the east. The foundation course, however, is continuous in alignment, curving only slightly south, suggesting that the original wall was straight. The external foundation course also continues to the east, under a later cart shed wall, suggesting that there may have originally been an earlier structure, contemporary with MacNicol’s House, in this position. At the western end of the wall the foundation course is on a slightly more northerly alignment, up to 0.3m off-line with the present wall at its western return. This misalignment probably dates from when MacNicol’s House was rebuilt by the Museum.

MacNicol’s House has the only thatched roof original to the Township. Although the building was re-roofed with corrugated iron it was put on top of the building’s late 18^th Century thatched roof which was retained over the dwelling part of the house. This added to the insulation of the building and reduced the effort of renewing the roof. The wall between the kitchen and the byre is a later insertion, probably replacing an original timber partition with a stone partition wall. The thatched roof predates the construction of this wall, as a smoke hole can still be seen in the thatched roof, yet the wall was built with a fireplace.

The half-loft located within the byre of MacNicol’s House, comprising roughly cut thin branches, is the only surviving example at Auchindrain, and is probably broadly contemporary with the stone partition wall that it butts. Half-lofts would have been typical throughout the earlier Township buildings, only later being replace with full lofts as seen in MacCallum’s House (Building A). The cobbling of the byre suggests that there would originally have been stalls/tethers along the western side of the byre, as well as the east, with a narrow manuring passage draining into a much larger central passage, only the southern end of which survives. It is likely that the current layout dates from the conversion of the byre into a stable, as the used of horses at Auchindrain grew in the mid 20^th Century. There is a cobbled ramp immediately outside the byre door, extending to the east, which was constructed to prevent the cattle from churning up the boggy ground.

Box-beds have been re-inserted in the parlour and the kitchen of the house in the positions of the original box-beds.