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MHG40023 - Tigh Dige, S of Flowerdale House

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The original house known as Tigh Dige was built on a field below where present Flowerdale House stands. It was a 'black house', built of turf, roofed with large thin turfs, and surrounded by a moat or ditch. It was in existence about 1480.
S Gordon 1935.

(NG 8137 7526) The old Tigh Dige and its gardens and outbuildings stood in the field on seaward side of paddock (in which is the 'Place of Justice' - NG81NW 7) below Flowerdale House. The Tigh Dige itself was a house in a ditch or moat. Its remains still existed up to time of late Sir France MacKenzie in the centre of this field but agricultural operations have entirely obliterated them. The lines of garden walls can still be traced in the part of the field lying to east. This was Gairloch home of Hector Roy MacKenzie, founder of family in latter part of fifteenth century. The Tigh Dige is said to have been originally a turf hut, with a roof made of sticks and divots. Kenneth MacKenzie erected on same site, within the same moat, about middle of seventeenth century, a more substantial building, which was called the Stank House or Moat House, and continued to be home of the family until 1738, when Sir Alexander Mackenzie erected present residence called Flowerdale House.
J H Dixon 1886.

The garden walls of Tigh Dige were still visible about 1931.
D MacDonald, A Polson and J Brown 1931.

The site of moated house indicated by Dixon (J H Dixon 1886) is a very marshy area unsuitable for building, save for a natural grassy hillock planted with trees centred at NG 8137 7526, 80m NW of the place of justice (See NG87NW 7). It is steepest on S. side and less well defined/ defined on other three. On flat top of it, several large earthfast stones suitable for building purposes can be seen, but they form no pattern of a structure. No moat is visible, but 0.3m high vague grass-covered banks of stones, probably garden walls mentioned by Dixon (J H Dixon 1886), are in evidence immediately to E of hillock.
Site surveyed at 1/2500. Visited by OS (N K B) 6 April 1965.

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Map

Location

Grid reference	Centred NG 8137 7526 (50m by 50m) (2 map features)
Map sheet	NG87NW
Geographical Area	ROSS AND CROMARTY
Civil Parish	GAIRLOCH

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