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MHG6074 - Township and field system - near Dun Borrafiach

Summary

A pre-clearance (and pre-crofting) township and field system.

Type and Period (2)

Protected Status

Full Description

A pre-clearance (and pre-crofting) township and field system.

The shallow basin occupied by the Borrafiach Burn is covered in a patch-work of globular fields which extend from the broch. They ride up over the rubble from the broch and are composed of earth and stone and measure up to 2m in thickness and 0.75m in height. Both lazy-beds and plough ridges are visible within the fields and although there is no ridging outwith the fields to the E, the ridging is not closely bound by the field-banks; there are fields which may not have been cultivated and plough scars which bear little relationship to the banks. In the N (NG 2346 6373) a patch of flat-topped lazy-beds survive, having been truncated by later agriculture to the W. Across much of the rest of the area wide spaced furrows are evident, in some places removed by later ploughing which has created relatively smooth areas. The area to the W of the track to Unish may have been disturbed by recent agriculture, as only fragments of ridging and field-banks survive. Some sequence may be evident in the field-walls, but only to the N is there the unambiguous relationship of a sub-peat dyke underlying the earth and stone banks. This sub-peat dyke is submerged in c.0.5m of peat. The larger part of the shallow basin of the Borrafiach Burn is enclosed by a 'head dyke' which connects with a series of banks which run through to Allt Bocaig and one which runs off along the peninsula to join banks to the S of Unish.
Visited by RCAHMS (DCC) 28 June 1990.

Between Unish and Trumpan-beg on the western side of Vaternish - located at NG 2363 - lies what is arguably one of the best-preserved of pre-crofting/pre-Clearance townships in the Hebrides. It is, however, a township whose identity is obscure. By the time the estate was surveyed in 1810, this part of the MacLeod estate had been sold to the Shaw family. The 1st edition Ordnance Survey 6-inch sheet (1878) records no settlement of any sort on the site, though later editions retrieved the situation a little by mapping a few of the fields that exist there and by noting the fact that shielings were present just outside its former head dyke. Despite a fine set of 17th and 18th-century rentals for the MacLeod estate, they offer few positive clues as to the identity of the site. A strong possibility is that it was included within the 10 pennylands of Unish, or Unish and Fascich as it is sometimes called, the main settlement at the tip of Vaternish. To overcome this problem of identity, the site has been called Borrafiach after the Iron Age broch - Dun Borrafiach - that lies on rising ground at the back of the site and whose own settlement and fields must have been a precursor for the site.

There is no way of telling from documentary data whether Borrafiach was ever a runrig township. There are clear signs of some of its fields being crossed by broad flattish rigs of the type associated with runrig, but these could equally have been the product of ploughing without any associated subdivision of holdings. Whatever their origin, what is more striking about the site is that these rigs are developed within a well-preserved network of enclosed fields. As [the author has] argued elsewhere, there is a strong case for saying that these enclosures - like the traces of enclosed fields to be found elsewhere in the Hebrides and along the west coast of the mainland - represent a pattern of field layout that predates runrig. Furthermore, their replacement by the latter was not something that happened in the archaic past but, arguably, during the late medieval period (ie in the 13th-15th centuries). As well as possessing a well-preserved pattern of enclosed fields, the site at Borrafiach is noteworthy because it shows no signs of having possessed a nucleated settlement or baile. It is, however, not lacking in settlement. There appear to be as many as 15 different sites on which building structures of some sort may have stood. Significantly, they are scattered widely across the site (see illus 6). From their size and shape, two might possibly be late 18th or early 19th-century farmsteads (nos 9 & 15). The rest appear to be either early or pre-18th-century structures, with a number clearly standing on low platforms and having all the indications of being former house sites. These figures exclude what appear to be shieling sites located on the south-eastern side of the township, outside of the head dyke. It is not suggested that all these sites were occupation sites or that they were in occupation at one and the same time. In all probability, the different sites went through cycles of use/disuse/reuse. When we combine this cycle of occupation with their general dispersal across the site, then we have what is suggested is the antithesis of stock ideas about the west Highland and Hebridean baile. Furthermore, whereas the nucleated baile is conventionally associated with runrig open fields, the dispersed settlement pattern of Borrafiach can be linked to a patttern of enclosed fields. <1>

GIS spatial data (drawn from what can be seen on 1999-2001 vertical aerial photography) includes the core area of 'globular' fields and eastwards to the head dyke and westwards to the coast. <2>

Sources/Archives (2)

Map

Location

Grid reference	Centred NG 2337 6348 (1175m by 826m) (2 map features)
Map sheet	NG26SW
Geographical Area	SKYE AND LOCHALSH
Civil Parish	DUIRINISH

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