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MHG24482 - Township, Reiff

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Thumbnail Photo of boat naust
Wester Ross Project - Cathy Dagg, 03/04
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The original township was a tight cluster of buildings between the Loch of Reiff and Reiff Bay, where there are now a number of new houses. The township was lotted around 1831: the croft strips are laid out to the east. The channel joining Loch reiff to the sea was formerly broad until narrowed into the present ‘canal’ at the request of the tenants at the beginning of the 20th century.
Wester Ross Project - Cathy Dagg, 23/03/04
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NB91SE 3 9657 1440

Apart from the occupied buildings, several of which are modern bungalows, Reiff township comprises eleven buildings, a series of crofts, and some lazy-beds. The majority of the buildings lie in a cluster along the shores of Reiff Bay, with one or two buildings or huts scattered around the crofts which fan out from the shore to a drystone head-dyke about 500m away. For the purposes of this record the division between Reiff and Blarbuie townships (NB91SE 4) has been taken as the uncultivated drove-way between the two blocks of crofts to the E of the main cluster of buildings.
Apart from one subrectangular building which has been reduced to low grass-covered footings (ACHIL94 185, NB 9654 1453), the buildings are rectangular, although sometimes with rounded corners, and are constructed with random-rubble walls with an earth-and-rubble core, except for two that are coursed (ACHIL94 184, 188). All the buildings except the bothy set within the crofts (ACHIL94 91) are aligned on an arc from N-S to NE-SW and are clustered on the shore. They range in size from 3.5m to 12.4m in length by between 3.25m and 4.4m in breadth with the three longest sub-divided into two (ACHIL94 186, 189, 190).
Where visible, they have a single entrance in the SE side and three buildings have extensions to the main structure (ACHIL94 184, 188, 191). Fireplaces are present in three instances (ACHIL94 184, 188, 191) and windows in all but one of the better-preserved buildings, i.e. those standing more than one metre high (ACHIL94 184, 186-8, 191), of which two still stand to gable height (ACHIL94 184, 186). One may have had a byre-drain (ACHIL94 191), as evidenced by a gap at the base of the gable of the first extension to the SW of the building. The majority of the buildings in the main cluster are attached to enclosures.
Two areas of lazy-bedding are visible: one on the N edge of the crofts and on both sides of the head-dyke (centred on NB 9680 1488); the other around the lochan on the E of the township (centred on NB 9698 1460). For the most part, however, the surface of the ground within the crofts has been smoothed by plough cultivation in recent times.
May's Survey of Coigach (1758; SRO, RHP 85395) depicts a township comprising fifteen buildings and two enclosures at the same location as the present settlement with an expanse of arable immediately inland and several outlying patches on either side of Loch Reiff. The Crofters Statistics of 1884 and 1886 indicate variously that crofts were allotted at Reiff in either 1831 or 1829 (Baldwin 1994). The 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Cromartyshire 1881, sheet iB) depicts twenty-seven roofed, two partially roofed and five unroofed buildings or structures. By 1970 there were only six roofed buildings shown on the OS 1:10560 map (1970), but there has been a spate of new building in recent years.
(ACHIL94 49, 91, 184-191, 196-7)
Visited by RCAHMS (PJD) 8 August 1994
W Baldwin 1994

Sites recorded during a survey of the intertidal zone and the coast edge (50m from the mean high tide mark) between the Rivers Ullapool and Culag.
Further details can be found in a report submitted to Historic Scotland.
NB 965 143 Boat noost.
NB 966 144 Rectangular building.
NB 965 146 Boat noost, revetment wall.
NB 966 147 Rectangular buildings.
Sponsors: Historic Scotland, Glasgow University Archaeology Department.
A Long 1996

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Location

Grid reference	Centred NB 9656 1440 (100m by 100m) (2 map features)
Map sheet	NB91SE
Geographical Area	ROSS AND CROMARTY
Civil Parish	LOCHBROOM

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