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MHG26665 - Fishing Station, Badentarbat

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Thumbnail photo of building at Badentarbat
Wester Ross Project - Cathy Dagg, 02/04

NC01SW 24.08 0103 0972
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Fishing Station now Consists of:
Well-kept, occupied fisherman’s cottage
Bothy on the shore
Building on the north side of the road, originally an ice house then the salt store
Sluice on the Allt an Fhealing, forming an artificial lochan for the making of ice
Anchors and cobles on the foreshore
Rails for pulling the boats onto the shore
Posts for net drying
Wester Ross Project - Cathy Dagg, 23/03/04
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The salmon fishing station at Badentarbat is the centre for a seasonal commercial bag-net fishery for wild salmon. Illness prevented other than two men unsuccessfully working a sweep net in 1992 and 1993, but a new tenant re-set the bag nets in 1994. Though most of the surviving buildings date from the 1850s onwards, there may well have been a fishing station here from the early 1800s. The house was built c.1860-70, originally single storey with an attic pole-store reached by an outside stair and a net store at one end. This building had a slated roof from the beginning. The present net store is said to incorporate an earlier ice-house, though the primary function was as a salt-house, tigh salainn, earthed up on both sides. The salt was used for pickling the salmon (and herring). The present large vaulted ice-house (also converted for other uses) dates from the 1870s with its pitched roof added towards the end of the century. This semi-subterranean stone store was packed with ice collected from a man-made pond during the cold weather, thrown in through a rear chute, and kept there until packed around the fish for transportation to the urban markets. The ice pond is identified by a shallow marshy lochan behind the fishing station, and by the remains of a sluice (Beaton 1994).
The various elements of the salmon fishery are generally as described by Beaton. The house stands to the S of the public road at NC 0099 0970; there is a garden on its SE side, at the bottom of which a bothy stands just above the shore. These two buildings are depicted on the 2nd edition of the OS 6-inch map (Ross and Cromarty 1906, sheet iiia - surveyed 1902) but the house cannot be earlier than the 1st edition of the map (Cromartyshire 1881, sheet iiia - surveyed 1875), which shows a long roofed building standing closer to the shore, approximately on the line of the present garden wall (and possibly incorporating the bothy). The vaulted ice-house is set into the hillside 100m SW of the house at NC 0091 0962. This does appear on the 1st edition map, and is marked as an ice-house. The net store is on the N side of the road at NC 0103 0972, and this is also marked as an ice-house on the 1st edition map. The lochan, now overgrown, is to the NE of the net store; it is not shown on either of the first two OS editions, although it does appear on Morrison's 1775 survey (SRO, E746/189). The remains of the sluice gate are at the SW corner of the loch, about 45m N of the net store. On the grassy bar between the loch and the shore there are a number of holes, marked by wooden posts, still used to support the poles on which fishing nets are hung to dry.
Visited by RCAHMS (SDB) August 1994
E Beaton 1994

Site 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.
NC 010 097 Salmon fishing station.
Sponsors: Historic Scotland, Glasgow University Archaeology Department.
A Long 1996

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Map

Location

Grid reference	Centred NC 0103 0972 (120m by 120m) (2 map features)
Map sheet	NC00NW
Geographical Area	ROSS AND CROMARTY
Civil Parish	LOCHBROOM

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