North Highland Initiative

Cover Note to Caithness Redundant Buildings Inventory

The vernacular and historic buildings of Caithness are a unique but diminishing resource, surviving precariously. On behalf of the North Highlands Initiative an Inventory of redundant and vernacular buildings in the old parishes of Caithness was carried out by Andrew Wright in the summer of 2007. The survey documented and photographed 1350 sites. Whilst not comprehensive the results provide an authoritative and statistically significant baseline level of knowledge against which future surveys can be compared. The Inventory is being digitised and will be available on disc.

The Report which accompanies the Inventory provides a detailed background, including the formative social and economic influences, to the building traditions in Caithness and identifies those features which are unique to the area. The Report also identifies the many structures at risk, discusses the underlying threats to the remaining built heritage, including the lack of formal recognition of its value, and makes recommendations as to how the alarming rate of decay might be halted. An abridged version of the full report is available.

The principal conclusions are:

• The vernacular heritage in Caithness is unique, is a diminishing resource, and is currently at considerable risk; • A distinctive vernacular tradition has been crafted in Caithness through the use of flagstone, creating a strong sense of local identity; • Some of the building types found in Caithness are unique to the area, for example: the distinctive places of worship erected for the Free Church in the 1840s and later for the United free Church and the rich legacy of farm buildings; • The merit of the vernacular heritage of Caithness has not always been recognised in the past, not least by its omission from heritage protection legislation; nor have fiscal policies and the application of planning guidelines assisted the regeneration of redundant buildings.

The Report makes fifty recommendations which cover six distinct areas:

• Dissemination of the Inventory and the Report to raise awareness of the richness of Caithness’s Built Heritage, its precariousness and the value associated with its regeneration ; • Agreement to the Recommendations with appropriate national, regional and local interests and the establishment of priorities; • Establishing a Programme with objectives, priorities, timescales and budgets together with the appointment of suitable staff; • Developing an infrastructure to support the Programme including the establishment of a Centre for Conservation Excellence; 2 • Funding: developing long term relationships with funding organisations and developing funding streams from regeneration; • Stakeholder Management: involve local, regional and national groups with an interest and expertise in the regeneration of vernacular and historic buildings in the programme and the work of the Centre for Excellence.

July 2008

3 North Highland Initiative

CAITHNESS REDUNDANT BUILDINGS INVENTORY (abridged version)

Introduction The Caithness Redundant Buildings Inventory has been produced for the North Highland Initiative in furtherance of its aim to bring lasting benefit to the area through the recovery of historic vernacular buildings. The Inventory is focused on Caithness but serves as a pilot for what might subsequently be applied to other areas in the North Highlands. The specific aims of the Inventory are:

• to determine the extent, scope and condition of the built heritage in Caithness;

• to identify structures with historic or architectural importance which are potentially recoverable;

• and to suggest how the loss of Caithness’s built heritage can be contained.

The Inventory and its accompanying Report were prepared by Andrew PK Wright, Chartered Architect and Heritage Consultant. Andrew has a distinguished record as a conservation architect, including being a Past President of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland and a member of the Historic Environment Advisory Council for Scotland.

Although not comprehensive, the Inventory records almost 1,350 sites in the old parishes of Caithness. It bears testimony to the richness of the built heritage of the area, and to the extreme risks it now faces. It is an irony that the remoteness which created the uniqueness of Caithness’s built heritage is also, in part, responsible for the dangers it now faces.

The full Inventory, together with notes and photographs, is contained in a database. The accompanying illustrated Report describes the background to the Inventory, the many factors influencing the survival of the built heritage in Caithness and includes conclusions and some fifty recommendations. This separate, abridged version of the Report has been prepared by the North Highland Initiative.

Getting Started

Prior to any field work a preliminary list of sites to be visited was compiled from reference to a number of libraries, learned bodies, archives and the Buildings at Risk Register. The intention to carry out the Inventory was publicised through articles in the local paper and by personal contact with landowners and their agents. Meetings also took place with various heritage societies, individuals and representatives of the community.

The field survey programme was undertaken on a parish-by-parish basis during the summer months of 2007. For it to be manageable it was restricted to properties accessible by normal vehicle. The Inventory is therefore not a complete account of every historic or vernacular building in the old parishes of Caithness. It does, however, provide an authoritative and statistically significant baseline level of knowledge against which future surveys can be compared. With a photographic record containing more than 2,700 photographs together with notes for each of the sites visited, it is sufficiently widely based to allow meaningful conclusions to be drawn.

Background

The vernacular buildings of Caithness are a unique but diminishing resource. It survives precariously. In the windswept landscapes of long horizons and open skies typical of the area, these old buildings provide a sense of scale. Whether set within the regular geometry of field boundaries or defiantly between sea and shore or abandoned at forgotten harbours, they are strongly evocative of the area’s history, reminding us forcibly of how heavily communities once depended on the fertility of the land and the bounty of the sea, and of the harshness of their existence.

The degree to which these historic buildings have been permitted to decay is clear: it is a stark reminder that the days of being the granary of Scandinavia, the supplier of salted herring to Eastern Europe, or the provider of pavements to the world’s cities are long past. Dounreay provided a period of relative 4 prosperity, but the nature of the consequent demographic changes resulted in a preference for new buildings, leaving the older structures to fall further into disuse and ruin.

There is hardly a building type spared the ravages of redundancy. Ecclesiastical buildings have been and continue to be badly affected. The Rural Board schools have fared little better. Farm buildings have suffered notable casualties. Even where the working of the land continues, the old byres and steadings have been rendered redundant because they are wholly unsuited to modern farm machinery, and the rating and VAT systems penalise their maintenance.

There has been a marked acceleration in the loss of historic structures in recent years and, with that, the loss of the key elements of vernacular building construction particular to the area. For example the longhouses of the early smallholdings and crofts have, with the remarkable exception of the Corr, been reduced to nothing more than their external masonry walls. Evidence of their former occupations has been lost to the elements. From being commonplace forty years ago, it is now rare to see thatched roofs, or the roofs of outbuildings clad in the characteristic large flagstones, in good repair.

From the late eighteenth century traditional construction in Caithness depended upon the relative distances of the site from a flagstone quarry or a harbour and the quality of road, if any, in between. Flagstone occurs as natural outcrops in several of the northern parishes and was easily quarried without specialist equipment. By contrast, Latheron Parish was distant from the flagstone quarries and construction there followed more closely the building traditions of the settlements along the coastline to the south, using materials imported with comparative ease through the many small harbours along Caithness’s coastal fringe.

Where flagstone predominates a distinctive Caithness tradition emerges, different to the construction techniques employed in the Northern Isles where the same reliance on quarried flagstone is encountered. The vernacular buildings of Caithness are unique. Nowhere is this exemplified more than on Stroma, where around seventy structures still survive. Collectively, they represent standing archaeology of a very high order and their survival, in such a hostile climate, testifies to the skill of the Stroma masons.

The use of heavy stone roofing slates quarried from the same sources as the slate used for walling gave the structures an extraordinary visual homogeneity. A natural architecture of pure forms and planes evolved, one devoid of embellishments, in harmony with the openness of the landscape. In Orkney, the flagstone roofs to outbuildings are constructed at a lower pitch, commonly laid to a saddle and trough pattern. In Caithness, considerable skill was employed to achieve a flush finish, in keeping with a desire to maintain the purity of the architectural form. An embellishment provided by the pure marine air along the coastal strip is the orange tint given to the old stone slated roofs due to the presence of lichens.

Historic buildings have the potential to make a positive contribution to the regeneration of an area. As a resource they are irreplaceable. The vernacular buildings of Caithness are of durable materials, particularly those constructed after the mid-nineteenth century. They are also very well built. However, decay can be alarmingly rapid once the integrity of the roof is breached, especially where the binding mortar at the heart of the walls is clay based, as it nearly always was. Already it is apparent that a significant number of structures are close to the point of no return and sadly many have already passed that point. If these remaining structures are valued, then there is a need for urgent action to prevent an accelerating rate of loss of this historic fabric.

Regeneration will require historic materials and traditional skills. While it may be possible to recycle some of the durable materials – for instance, stone roofing slates, of which currently there is a reasonable, if dwindling, resource – there will also be a need for new material. At present the flagstone industry is not geared up to the production of material for the repair of traditional buildings. Any programme for the regeneration of traditional buildings in Caithness will require craftsmen with the skills to work with the traditional materials.

The Inventory shows that there are many structures with undoubted architectural and historical merit in Caithness which have, so far, been overlooked by the statutory designation system. An anomaly which clearly indicates how the value of the historic building stock of Caithness has not been recognised.

Formative Factors

Historic and vernacular buildings tell a story, one formed by the landscape in which they dwell, shaped by the lives, wellbeing and occupation of those who lived in them and composed from the materials to hand.

5 The Caithness Landscape

Early accounts of Caithness describe it, with the exception of Berriedale, as barren, bleak and treeless with a rocky coastline and stupendous cliffs. Mid 18th century maps show small settlements huddled on the strips of land along the coastline where the lower, more fertile ground was cultivated. The determination by leading landowners at the turn of the 19th century to improve standards of animal husbandry and horticulture produced a distinctive new landscape of regular patterns, defined by the boundaries of the enclosed fields. In those areas where farming and crofting continued, the landscape is little different now.

In the northern parishes where flagstone was readily available, the materials and skills required for the enclosure boundaries were essentially the same as those used for vernacular buildings. The consequence was a remarkable homogeneity of colour and texture, rarely seen elsewhere. Boundaries were principally of drystane walling made of flagstone laid horizontally with copings of the same material laid vertically to great decorative effect. Where material of an adequate size was available, the field boundaries were defined by flagstones driven vertically into the ground.

The field enclosures created variations in colour within the landscape according to the time of the agricultural year. The dykes provided definition to the rolling character of the countryside. Farm ranges and farmhouses fitted within folds in the landscape, away from the prevailing wind, and provided a comforting sense of scale to the vast, windswept horizons and open skies.

The Economy of Caithness

A visitor seeing the numerous vernacular buildings littering the landscape might be justified in assuming that the regional economy was in decline compared to other areas of the mainland. Although farming and fishing, and latterly, flagstones continue to contribute to the Caithness economy, they are shadows of their former selves. Since the mid 20th century the nuclear establishment at Dounreay has provided a temporary respite. Tourism has still to reach the levels of other areas of the Highlands and too often Caithness has been no more than a stepping stone for holidaymakers en route to Orkney.

Farming

Farming in one form or another has been a mainstay of Caithness life since earliest times. Until the latter part of the 18th century, farming in Caithness was centred on the production and export of grain and upon a farming system based around an annual, equitable distribution of good and poor land, the run-rig system. Such was the fertility of the soil in parts of Caithness and the diligence of the farmers that as early as the 14th century grain was being exported to Scandinavia in quantities sufficient to justify the building of a harbour at Thurso. In 1600 Caithness was one of the few areas in Scotland where there was a surplus of grain over the local demand. Nevertheless, the failure of a grain harvest, as occurred in 1782, could lead to great hardship. Starting at the end of the 18th century and extending well into the 19th century, as a result of the farming reforms advocated by Sir John Sinclair, the long thin run-rigs were replaced by a system based around enclosed fields and the rotation of crops (turnips, grass, oats and barley). By 1902 clover and grass would supplant grain as the major crop in Caithness. The creation of the enclosed field systems resulted in considerable social upheaval. Small tenants could not afford the enhanced rents (now required in ‘cash’ rather than in service, or in kind) being levied on the ‘improved land’ and were dispossessed. Rights to common grazing were set aside as marginal land was taken over and improved through draining, liming and manuring of the soil. The dispossessed largely moved to the fringes of the uplands, to build longhouses (or 'byre dwellings') from the stones to hand, and eke out an existence.

The uplands of Caithness were not suitable for grain but were used for the grazing of black cattle. In the 1790s an estimated 3,000 beasts were sold to the drovers each year. The 1790s also saw the introduction of ‘southern’ sheep into Caithness at an accelerating rate. By 1800 there were 12,700, by 1880 there were 91,000 and by 1938 there were nearly 250,000. By the beginning of the 20th century the sheep and wool exported from the county were able to command top prices in the Lowland markets.

The introduction of the enclosure system and sheep farming, and the usurpation of common grazing, resulted in a growing divide between those reliant on subsistence farming, and the larger farm units which had diversified and were providing a high standard of living for the new breed of gentlemen farmers. In 1840 the Reay Parish minister described how the introduction of sheep farms over large swathes of the upland landscape had left the dispossessed tenants in the most miserable of circumstances, with many following the course of emigration. The plight of the small tenants, and the strength of their grievances against the landlords in Caithness, was aired in the evidence given to the 6 Napier Commission in 1883. The rights of such tenants to tenure were recognised and established in law by the subsequent Crofting Act of 1886. At that time Caithness had approximately 1,400 crofts.

By 1861 the Caithness population, driven by the demands of the herring fishing, had peaked at approximately 41,000. By the third decade of the 20th century, the growing mechanisation of farming and the move by the larger farms towards self-sufficiency, had reduced the need for farm labourers and the population of the county dropped to roughly half that of 1861.

Fishing

For hundreds of years Caithness’s eastern coast had been washed by a sea full of herring. For the subsistence farmers along the coast’s edge, fishing had long become an established means of supplementing their meagre returns from the land. The story of fishing in Caithness is dominated by the romance of the herring and pays scant regard to the contribution from white fish and salmon, both of which might claim to have proved more resilient.

The story is a remarkable (and well documented) one, from the first recorded venture into commercial fishing at Staxigoe with two vessels in 1767 to its demise nearly two centuries later. In that period:

• the number of fishing vessels using Wick rose to a peak of 1,162 in 1862, thereafter decreasing by a factor of four (to 290) in 1910; • the annual catch rose from a few barrels to a peak of nearly 165,000 cran in 1910; • the population of Wick parish rose from 3,986 in 1801 to a peak of 13,291 in 1871, then fell to 9,531 by 1951; for Caithness the population increased from 22,609 in 1801 to 41,111 in 1861, subsequently decreasing to 33,870 in 1901 and 22,710 in 1951; • Pulteneytown, a completely new town designed by Telford to support the fishing industry in Wick, was completed in 1810 with housing for 1000 people, ship yards, works and stores. By 1851 its population was 3,800, increasing further to 9,471 in 1901; • in 1840, the 765 vessels fishing from Wick created 7,882 direct jobs (3,828 crewmen, 265 coopers, 2,175 gutters, 46 labourers, 127 carters, 150 labourers, 91 fish curers and 1,200 unspecified workers); • ancillary industries were established: four rope works, a distillery and brewery, one meal and barley mill, four saw mills, a pavement manufacturer, a ship building yard, twelve boat building yards, a foundry, and a Gas Company; • Wick hosted an enormous seasonal workforce, 12,000 at its peak, including a large Gaelic speaking component. Wick was the local centre for the herring fishing, but the smaller harbours along the coast strove to emulate its success. Planned villages arose around some smaller local harbours, such that by 1840 fishing provided direct employment for about 2600 people in the Latheron parish. But, as the size of boats increased, these harbours proved increasingly impractical and the catch and employment fell. Despite Lybster harbour being expanded twice, even there the fleet decreased, from 292 boats in 1856 to 68 by 1888 and the catch fell in sympathy, from 26,572 cran in 1856, to 18,400 cran in 1873 and to 12,210 cran in 1874. The small harbours failed, with only the roofless shells of the store-houses and rusting capstans as evidence of the past.

The demise of herring fishing from Wick began with the First World War, then continued with the loss of its markets in Russia (due to revolution) and Germany (due to devaluation of the mark) and a period of poor fishing. What fish that were caught were difficult to sell. In the 1930s boats dumped as much unsold herring in the harbour as they sold for curing. There was a brief respite after the Second World War, sufficient to keep 60 coopers and 300 fisher lassies busy, but the desire for salted herring had diminished and by 1953 the industry had collapsed.

Employment for fishermen, if not for coopers and fisher lassies, had begun to decrease once boats became larger and more mechanised. A power winch could do the work of several men when it came to hauling nets, an impact which was accelerated by the introduction of steam power.

Icehouses associated with the salmon trade, where the fish would be stored for months in ice before transporting to the markets in the south, are found at several harbours, including Castlehill, which boasted an impressive range of vaulted icehouses built by James Traill.

Flagstones

The flagstone industry was the third industry contributing to the Caithness economy in the 19th century. In 1824, James Traill established the pavement trade from his quarries to the east of his 7 mansion at Castlehill, and adjacent to a harbour he had previously constructed. Following trial runs in 1793, the first substantial shipment of dressed material was exported to the south in 1825. Other landowners followed suit but not all had the advantage of a harbour on their doorstep. One that did was the quarry at Forss. By contrast the quarries at Spittal were twelve miles distant from the nearest coastline and until the roads in the county were opened up were, like other similar quarries, at a disadvantage in terms of transporting the slabs by cart to their chosen harbours.

The pavement works beside the river at Thurso provided quarrymasters with the capacity to saw and polish the flagstone. The works at Castlehill had the same capacity but used steam and water to power the various processes. The Caithness flagstone industry was second only to Aberdeen granite for the volume of material exported. In the seventeen years between 1895 and 1911, the quarries exported close to 275,000 tons of flagstone. There was many a city, in Britain and across the world, where the streets were paved with Caithness flagstones. Production peaked in the decade between 1895 and 1905 when the average tonnage was around 20,000 per annum, with a maximum output of 35,000 tons being reached in 1902. At its peak the industry employed about 1000 people and doubled the labourer’s pay.

The decline of the industry was astonishingly rapid. Exports fell from 16,000 tons in 1905 to 5,000 tons in 1914. The introduction of synthetic stone and concrete paving slabs killed the market for flagstones, leaving only a diminished market for aggregates, walling and fencing, mainly for local consumption. Quarry workings were abandoned, together with the buildings associated with them, leaving scenes of dereliction across the landscape and around the harbours from which the material was exported.

Since 1949 there has been a little activity. The County Council’s Architect's Department maintained a tradition of specifying Caithness flagstone for roofing, dressings to wall openings and fencing in their schemes. The small quarry at Plocan produced small roofing slates for a few historic buildings in the county and for the refurbishment schemes underway at Kirkwall and Stromness. More recently the industry has seen a revival of sorts, with the material, unfortunately lacking the variety in texture and colour which was once its trademark, being used in prestigious contemporary buildings.

Other Industries

The brewing and distilling industry provided some local employment. In 1840 the distillery in Wick employed twelve, little enough to meet the prodigious thirst of the locals: in 1844, 800 gallons of whisky a week were being consumed in Wick’s forty four public houses during the summer season. Established in 1826 the Pulteneytown distillery continues to this day. Only fragments remain of the distilleries around Halkirk. The old brewery at Thurso, one of the oldest industrial buildings in the Highlands, has been recently demolished and replaced by new housing.

Transportation played an important role in the development of the staple industries and in improving communications. The railway line between Inverness and Wick and Thurso opened in 1874. It became possible to transport fish to London in refrigerated vans in 1881, although the charges levied by the railway companies were high. The railway also benefited the import and export of building materials. An independent light railway line linking Wick to Lybster opened in 1903 in an attempt to revive Lybster’s fishing prospects. When Wick was declared dry, the railway allowed the enterprising drinkers of Wick to find solace in the bars of Lybster on a Saturday. The line closed in 1944.

Before the coming of the railways, commerce had been heavily dependent on the harbours and whatever roads or tracks were available. Sir John Sinclair attempted to improve the roads of the county in 1793, but found other landowners reluctant to provide the capital required. In 1817 a Parliamentary road was built through the county and acted like a fertilizing stream; on each side farms, houses and steadings sprang up. In a few years the advantages of building roads throughout the county were obvious to all. By 1824-5 a mail-coach was providing a regular service with the south.

Living and Building in Caithness

Living

Life in rural Caithness prior to the ‘improvements’ would have been little different from elsewhere in the Highlands, based as it was on the seasons, the movement of the farm animals to different grazing, the use of common hill pasture and the making of dairy products in the shieling. Before the introduction of the potato in 1850, the small tenants' food would consist of brose or porridge for breakfast, cabbage boiled oatmeal, and for supper bere bread and brochan (water gruel). Meat was hardly ever present on the table. In the coastal parishes the diet was supplemented by fishing. Shellfish were only eaten when bad weather prevented the boats from being launched. 8

There was no middle-class within the county other than the few lawyers, clergy and farmers because the improving landowners were themselves the farmers without appointing middlemen. This led to the refurbishment of the family seats as living standards improved, and it became commonplace for a draughty old house perched on the crest of a rock for defence to be abandoned in favour of a new mansion house erected inland away from the harshness of the coastline. The buildings inhabited by the gentry in the 18th century, if not the manner of living which included meat on the table and claret, were the subject of derogatory comment by contemporary observers.

The county was not immune from the causes of the clearances: the introduction of sheep farms, the enclosure of land and the loss of the common grazing. The dispossessed clung to life in the marginal uplands, following the old traditions, living in structures that were little improved on those of their forebears, but having the merit, at least, that they could be erected through hard toil using the materials found close to the site, or in the case of timbers, salvaged from former uses.

As the staple industries were established, the able-bodied left the land to find occupation in the new planned settlements set up from the turn of the nineteenth century, leaving an ageing population behind in the countryside. The population of Castletown doubled within fifteen years due to the success of the flagstone industry. Pulteneytown was bursting at the seams.

The large farms had a constant need for farm-servants. The 1851 census recorded that Stemster, a farm of 1,100 acres, employed no less than 38 permanent staff and 60 labourers, in addition to a groom, cook, laundress and housemaid. Female labour was often provided by wives of the farm workers, who might reside in a row of cottages close to the farm complex. Unmarried women, required as dairymaids, housemaids, or to tend the hen-house, would normally live in, or above the kitchen in some of the farmhouses. Bothies for women outworkers were not uncommon in Caithness. A woman could earn roughly half that of a male worker. Male bothies would often accommodate large numbers of workers with varying occupations while, in rare cases, bothies for both sexes might be provided, giving rise to the concern of the local ministers that bothies were dens of iniquity and not conducive to upholding moral values in rural society.

The sudden collapse of the staple industries in the second and third decades of the 20th century had a marked effect on standards of living, and on population numbers. In Castletown workers were occasionally placed on a two-day working week as production fluctuated, and when the quarries finally closed a relief fund for the unemployed had to be set up. Many left the area for good, seeking work elsewhere. The numbers of unemployed in Wick rose to one thousand at the height of the depression when, coincidentally, the fishing industry failed. Agriculture, by this time, employed over one-third of the whole labour force of the county, but even farm labourers were finding difficulty getting work because of increasing mechanisation.

The Education Act of 1696 charged the heritors of each parish with the duty of providing a school building and school master. In Caithness the heritors evaded their responsibilities for the provision of education for much of the 18th century. With the onset of the age of agricultural improvement the situation improved markedly, reflecting the increase in general prosperity. In the 1820s six in ten could read in Caithness. In 1838 a society with the name of the Edinburgh Caithness Association was set up to promote education across the county. In the 1840s Latheron Parish boasted 18 schools, of variable standard, depending on whether or not they were endowed. In addition to the parochial schools, bodies such as the SSPCK (Scottish Society for Propagation of Christian Knowledge), the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and the Free Church provided education.

Even places of worship, once the bedrock of the community, were not immune from change. The empty shells of former churches tell a similar tale to the wrecks of the crofts littering the open landscape. It is one of lost, and irretrievable, ambitions. The county was not unique in enduring the constant round of changes befalling the religious scene in Post-Reformation Scotland. It shared with Easter Ross and the Black Isle the same spirit of campaigning evangelical revivalism. The same strain of evangelism lingered into the 19th century, ensuring that those leaving the established church at the time of the Disruption in 1843 to form the Free Church enjoyed a strong following in the north. At a time when Highland society was disintegrating, the Free Church ministers became popular social leaders, and supported the crofters in their case for land reform.

As the 19th century progressed religious observance increased at a time when the population in the rural parishes grew by one-half over a period of just thirty years. Parliamentary churches were erected at Berriedale and Keiss, and quoad sacra parishes created around them. Those dispossessed of their 9 land, and who had resettled in the more remote uplands, were served in the late 1830s and early 1840s by the chapels-of-ease.

When the United Free Church split from the Free Church in 1900, new churches and manses were built in the rural areas. The split in Caithness was more marked than in many parts of the country and weakened the influence of the Free Church permanently. The re-unification of the majority of the United Free Church with the established church in 1929 reduced the number of churches required, leaving the future of many of the predominantly rural church buildings in doubt.

Nonconformist chapels are to be found across the county, with a number of Baptist chapels, located mainly in the less prosperous areas, still in use. While most of the small chapels are embedded in the fabric of the coastline villages, occasionally they are located remotely from any obvious signs of habitation, such as the first Baptist Church in Scotland at Nybster. It now lies redundant.

There has been an Episcopalian presence in Wick since 1642. However, the first Episcopal church was not consecrated in Wick until May 1870, followed in 1884 by a second in Thurso. Both continue in use today. A Roman Catholic chapel was erected in Pulteneytown for the legions of migrant workers arriving for the three months of the fishing season. The current round of parish reappraisals being conducted by the Church of Scotland is increasing the stock of redundant church buildings. Whilst some former ecclesiastical buildings find new secular uses, a substantial number of them, in both town and country, stand unoccupied, decaying, and at the mercy of the elements.

Building

From early times the traditional rural building in Caithness was a hovel constructed of turf (feal), stones and clay. This was followed in the late 18th century by the stone longhouses, often constructed by the inhabitants. Even these used turfs, mixed with heather as an infill above gable walls or as a component of thatched roofs.

The later widespread use of flagstones resulted in a unique and distinctive style of construction. Its attributes are, for example: eaves of roofs constructed from heavy flagstones left flush, producing buildings with a cleanliness of line not found elsewhere; the pitch of Caithness flagstone roofs being significantly higher than elsewhere, adding to the distinctiveness of the buildings; roof slates fixed to battens as compared to being laid on wooden sarking; piended (hipped) roofs built with crafted flush mitred joints as compared with the raised hip tiles found elsewhere; and for outbuildings a distinctive roof consisting of large flagstones, based upon an earlier tradition of using flagstones as an underlayer for thatch.

The traditional building materials were inherently durable, but, sadly, neither they nor the structures to which they gave form were indestructible. Abandoned or unused buildings, unless maintained, ultimately become no more than carcasses punctuating the landscape. For example:

• thatched roofs were commonplace, now a thatched roof in good condition is a rarity; • roofs of large flagstones were once an integral part of the Caithness landscape, now roofs of this type, in good condition, are becoming increasingly rare, many being in a state of partial or total collapse; • the practice of stripping the heavy stone slates from failed roofs on farm buildings still required for use, and replacing them with prefabricated panels, destroys the qualities of traditional farm buildings, both aesthetically and in terms of construction; • use of cement renders has a long tradition across the county but modern cement renders are far stronger than the traditional renders and can be very damaging to historic fabric, accelerating rather than delaying decay; • the growing use of self-coloured drydash, or pebbledash, finishes is out of keeping with the original harmony between building and landscape; • only one example of the use of turfs mixed with heather as an infill above gable walls was found during this survey, and that at extreme risk, compared to plentiful recordings being noted in 1971.

Distinctive differences, where they exist, are always of interest and, when understood, leave us wiser. The Inventory shows how the traditional methods of construction differed within the county and how the Caithness tradition differed from other parts of Scotland. In this, it expands upon and reinforces Elizabeth Beaton’s highly informative architectural guide to the buildings of the county, and perhaps 10 does something to correct the failure of other past works on vernacular buildings to recognise that in Caithness the vernacular building tradition has its own highly distinctive character.

Masonry Walling: Materials and Techniques

The structures standing within the broad sweep of the landscape of Caithness recall a long tradition, from prehistory onwards, of using the flagstone and other indigenous walling materials. The hovels were primitive, prone to fire and insubstantial. Little physical evidence of their existence remains. The longhouses were roughly built by the tenants and much resembled drystane work, as is evident from those left unpointed, or where the lime mortar applied to the joints has failed and left the wall core, bound by clay mortar, exposed.

The walls of these early dwellings and their byres were mainly of reasonably sized and roughly dressed field stones (as exemplified by the Corr). In some areas, eg Latheron, the gables might have primitive crowsteps as preparation for a thatched finish. The use of field stones was common in the first half of the 19th century although in areas such as Dunnet and Canisbay the construction could be less primitive with snecks (small fragments of stone) introduced to the coursing to reduce the joint width.

In Latheron Parish the building stones are generally different to the other parishes of the county. Prior to the early 19th century, as elsewhere, walling would be harled with lime mortar, and limewashed. Later, the building traditions matched those of the settlements along the coastline to the south, with masonry laid as coursed rubble, often with stone snecks applied to the interstices to pack out the joints. The face of the stone would still bear thin marks of where it had been split. Only quoins and rybats would be dressed to any great extent. Colour of the masonry varied, from a pleasing yellow to brown colour along the coastal strip to a more greyish hue in the upland areas. The stone, unlike the fissile material used in the other parishes, could be shaped decoratively, allowing features such as skewputts and copings to be incorporated. The shaped stones (voussoirs) used for the arched openings to cartsheds are found to be larger in size and more robust, and skews at the heads of gables more commonplace, than elsewhere in Caithness.

A preference for relatively large blocks of dressed stone for quoins and rybats also appears in some of the northern parishes, particularly at Castlehill, and at Brough in the Dunnet Parish; it appears prominently at the Castletown Mill, and is found on some properties on Stroma. All are close to harbours and suggest that the stone, a yellowish or pink sandstone, was imported from outside the county (for instance, from Morayshire). However, it is possible that local quarries existed, producing this material in relatively small quantities.

Much has been written about the characteristic appearance of the Caithness flagstone. The ratio of width to length can vary, depending upon the quarry, from 1:1 (square) to 1:20. Flagstones with such an extended length tend to be very thin and required great skill from the masons to ensure that the walling was structurally stable. Until the mid-19th century, the long term performance of such walls depended upon the strength of the lime mortar applied on their external face. It was usual to provide a sacrificial coat of thin lime render to regularise and bind the face of the wall.

Flagstones were usually quarried with parallel faces on the longer sides. However, the masons on Stroma had to contend with material that had a tapering profile on the outer face, and did so with such skill that the finished walling possesses a finish of considerable visual interest.

Flagstone is regarded as a highly durable material, and in many parishes the face of the stone appears regular, as though polished, adding considerably to the character. The Devonian rock seams produce a finely grained siltstone which is rich in carbonates, with varying mineral content resulting in different shades of colour, especially when the material has been left exposed to weather. The best quality was claimed locally to be a 'beautiful blue' colour, or 'clayslate', while some of the stone on Stroma can vary between brown and an attractive purple.

Where possible, flagstones are laid with very fine joints. To accommodate variable thickness in the slate, coursed rubble work is used and may show a very high standard of workmanship. In parishes such as Canisbay and Wick, the traditional approach used elsewhere in Scotland, of inserting snecks into the wider joints to reduce their width and to ease the bedding in of the larger stones, was followed.

Some flagstone proved to be significantly less durable than others. Possible explanations range from free iron running out of the stone, leading to excessive discolouration, to impurities, such as clay, embedded in the fissile layers of the quarried material causing the breakdown of the face of the stone.

11 The vernacular building tradition in Reay Parish, in part at least, is akin to that in Sutherland because of the available local building materials: while flagstone is still used other walls were constructed of rounded field stones of granite and whin, snapped in half, in some buildings and with predominantly brownish sandstone in others.

Gables wallheads can be given different finishes depending on the locality and the age of the structure. A tradition for primitive crowsteps existed in the Latheron parish, but where these are laid consistently, and where the roof has a steeper pitch than normal, the building may be of mid 18th century origin, or possibly earlier. The snuff mill at Crosskirk, and some of the earlier farm buildings at Sandside House fall into this category. Crowsteps were used in some of the showpiece mains farms of the 19th century together with decorative, or scrolled, skewputts.

There appear to be no hard and fast rules for the introduction of raised skews at gable wallheads. Often ranges of buildings of differing age on the same site may have flush gables or skews without apparent reason. The tradition elsewhere in Scotland is invariably for skews to be incorporated to reduce the risk of slates being dislodged at the eaves by the wind. In Caithness the use of heavy slates of flagstone averted the risk. Therefore, as the 19th century progressed, it became common for eaves to be built flush, giving the buildings a widely admired architectural purity. This tradition seems to be confined to Caithness. Ultimately the clipped eaves treatment extended to all parts of the county, even those areas where blue slate roofs were more commonplace.

Although the flagstone had little, or no, tensile strength, it had immense versatility in use. It was suitable for use as lintols, and in some cases the stone would be turned and laid vertically for longer openings, such as those to cartsheds in steadings. In this form it appears often as lintols to fireplace openings in the gables of dwellings. Frequently it was used as thin voussoirs to arched openings, and in this form depressed arches were possible, some being almost completely flat.

The external walls of some outbuildings, close to those quarries where material of good consistency and size could be extracted, were sometimes constructed of very large flagstones. Sometimes known as 'shed covers', these large flags could be used as cladding to a light timber frame, with the edges secured by iron plates. Good examples are found in the Watten, Olrig and Canisbay parishes. Large flagstones could be used around high level door openings or dormers, although stone dormers are not a common feature of vernacular building other than in farm buildings to give high level access to lofts.

Porches to dwellings tend to be restricted mainly to the northern parishes of Dunnet and Canisbay, and, occasionally, to the later cottages of the upland areas of Latheron Parish. Normally they are of flagstone because timber was in such short supply. Often rendered, they were given distinctive decorative timber bargeboards, a particular feature of the crofthouses in the Brough area.

Brick

With the widespread availability of the indigenous flagstone, brick was never a common building material in Caithness. There were no brickworks in the county. From the late nineteenth century, most of the bricks that were used would have been brought into the local harbours from the nearest brickworks at Brora Brick had certain advantages, and was the preferred material for constructing the tall chimneys for those large farms where steam powered threshing had been introduced. It can appear in unexpected places – for instance, at Castlehill, right at the very heart of the flagstone industry, where a tall brick chimneyhead was added to the rear of one of the properties.

In Wick, bricks were used selectively for industrial buildings, constructed around the turn of the twentieth century. There are good examples surviving, some with polychromatic brickwork of red and yellow bricks to define the wall openings. Brickwork is prone to suffering from frost damage in the harsh Caithness climate.

Lime harling and lime washes

Few examples of lime harling to masonry were observed during the course of the 2007 survey. Other than for the most primitive masonry construction to longhouses, and to some of the improved tenants' houses, lime harling would have been the customary finish to masonry up to the second, or third, decade of the 19th century. This lack of evidence suggests that much of the surface coating was washed off by wind driven rain and has not been renewed.

Where lime harling was renewed, for instance in some of the larger farms, it appears that cement-based renders were preferred from a relatively early date. However, it was more common for buildings to be left undecorated. Accordingly evidence of coated finishes having been limewashed is hard to find. In 12 1985 it was estimated that around one in ten vernacular buildings in Caithness had rendered wall external wall finishes, and the same proportion had surfaces that were painted.

In some parishes there is evidence of masonry walls having been limewashed, without necessarily having been harled beforehand. Photographs from the late nineteenth century show the popularity of this finish for the walls of rural cottages and, occasionally, for farm outbuildings or courts in the case of the larger farms, no doubt for maintaining cleanliness. The effect is to give the structures prominence within the landscape. There was plenty of limestone within the county for building and agricultural purposes.

Cement coatings

Concern about the poor setting qualities of lime-based harling in persistently cold or windy weather may have resulted in the introduction of low strength Roman and Portland cements to the area at an early date. The refinement of adding pozzolans to improve the strength and setting qualities of the material would have been reserved for civil engineering works such as bridges and harbours. Cement would have been attractive because of its ready availability, and because of the ease with which the material could be transported in bulk through the many harbours along the coastline. The use of the material may also have extended the building season.

In the late 20th century cement rendering was used indiscriminately in the refurbishment of farmhouses and crofts, often leaving a dull grey finish. The use of drydashed, or pebbledashed, finishes with modern coloured aggregates has no historical precedent. In the majority of cases where this has happened to dwellings the steadings and outbuildings will have been left close to their original state.

Some of the harbourside warehouses at Wick received smooth cement renders in the latter half of the 19th century, and this finish evolved into a way of decorating houses in the main urban settlements. Window rybats and lintols would be 'lugged', forming patterns onto the surface of which delicate motifs were introduced for visual effect. This tradition was typical of the fishing towns of the Banff and Moray coastline. In the urban settlements of Caithness it was a way in which an older property might be given a new, more fashionable, lease of life, reflecting an owner’s improved status. Mouldings would be run in cement, often with considerable skill; these early cement renders would hardly ever be painted or limewashed, and their greyness would be enlivened by the appearance of broken sea shells used as aggregate in the mortars.

Some of the county’s distinctive Free Churches show evidence of early cement renders. The former church at Barrock is coated with cement render lined to resemble stonework, with raised margins at the window openings. Historic photographs suggest that the external walls of the new churches and manses of the United Free Church of the early 20th century had been left undecorated from the outset.

Roof thatching

Thatched roofs were once a common feature of the Caithness landscape. Apart from the Corr and the museum at Laidhay, it is now very rare to see a thatched roof in good condition. During the 2007 survey many examples were found of roofs that had collapsed in recent years. A building at Broubster, inhabited up to the 1960s, with a roof still intact in 1997, is now in a state of complete collapse.

With constructional timber being in such short supply material for the roof couples or cruck frames were normally supplied by the landowner and would be referred to as 'master wood', or by other similar names. During the survey work carried out in the Latheron parish in 1971 it was observed that roofing timbers had been salvaged from a number of sources, including the ribs of old boats.

In Caithness thatching techniques evolved from the mid-eighteenth century. In the better dwellings the lower part of the roof would be finished with flags, over which straw ropes would be laid close together and drawn tight. The roof of a lowly dwelling would be of turf and straw, tied with straw ropes, and would require to be renewed each year. An improved method of thatching, capable of a life of up to twenty years before re-thatching would become necessary, was introduced at the end of the eighteenth century using turf, clay and straw. The 1971 survey saw no examples of this tradition, but there was evidence of straw thatch being secured by heather 'simmens', or ropes. Traditionally thatch was held down by 'benlin stanes', most commonly long pieces of flagstone. More recently the roofing has been secured by wire netting, a method observed at some of the sites recorded during the 2007 survey. Seemingly heather has never been used as a thatching material in this part of the country.

On the mainland the best sites with evidence of former thatching follow the coastal strip between Berriedale and Wick, with further examples in the upland areas of the Latheron and Halkirk parishes. 13 One of the best sites with surviving thatched roofs is The Corr. Failed roofs where the evidence still survives are still fairly common, but the evidence is disappearing fast. Examples were seen on Stroma, and at Broubster. Several sites were recorded where structures would have had thatched roofs in the past, but were now over clad in alternative materials such as corrugated iron.

Thatch, being an organic material, can be subject to rapid decay if maintenance is not carried out at the required intervals. Without the benefit of heat to the building interior, for example where properties are left unoccupied, the rate of decay may be accelerated from prolonged dampness, increasing the weight of the roof covering and causing failure of the roof structure, and eventually to total collapse.

Stone and flagstone roofing

But for the Latheron Parish, the use of stone slates for roofing is almost universal across the county, from improved tenant's cottage to large vernacular building. Some roofs, for instance the girnal at Ham where the slates were fixed to battens with wooden pegs at the turn of the 19th century, appear to be in their original state, providing a clear indication of the durability of the material.

What makes the roofs of Caithness particularly distinctive is that they have been constructed with a pitch that is significantly higher than in other areas where flagstones are used, such as the northern isles. On Stroma the Caithness traditions were followed. The Caithness flagstone roof pitches approximate closely to the pitches found elsewhere on the Scottish mainland. Buildings with roofs, walls and enclosures all made with slate from the same source and devoid of skews have a purity of line, form, colour and texture which complements and enhances the Caithness landscape.

A Caithness roof in good repair is indeed beautiful to behold. Invariably the slates are well graded, laid with consummate skill in carefully defined diminishing courses with the smaller slates at the head of the roof. Wider slates, of a slate width and-a-half, are inserted at the eaves where there are no skews. Piended (hipped) roofs of stone slate, and of the larger flagstone, have beautifully crafted flush mitres, and were never fitted with raised hip tiles or lead as is found more commonly elsewhere. The basic roof construction was markedly different to the rest of Scotland where slates would be laid on close-boarded timber sarking, whereas in Caithness the tradition was much closer to English practice with slates fixed to battens. The skeletal framework of roofs in decay reveals this feature most clearly.

Unlike most of the Northeast of Scotland, sandstone ridging appears only on a few late Victorian dwellings in the towns, neither was the usual alternative of lead ridging ever used. Imported yellow clay ridges, capable of resisting frost, seem to have been used universally apart from a minority of late nineteenth century houses in Wick where decorative stone ridges in red clay were used.

The numbers of stone slate roofs still standing on the crofthouses of Stroma bear ample testimony to their inherent durability. By contrast, new stone slate roofs can suffer from extensive staining of free iron in the material, a problem that does not appear to have occurred historically.

In some parishes, for instance Bower, farm steadings were constructed with hipped roofs. A pattern of steading from the early 19th century, found on the more important farms, had arched openings of up to seven bays, almost always with hipped, or 'piended' roofs. Occasionally, and unsatisfactorily, a roof of stone slates may have been pointed up in cement mortar to deter the loss of slates from a failing roof, or to ensure watertightness.

A variation on the stone slate roof, used only for outbuildings or the smaller buildings on the farms, is the highly distinctive roof of large flagstones. This method of roofing is unique to Caithness. Roofs of similar material in the Northern Isles had a much lower pitch and more commonly the flagstones, with seamers beneath them, were laid in a saddle and trough arrangement to shed water away. The roofs made of large flagstones are laid flush to the same pitch as ordinary roofs, requiring great precision in the location of the underlying seamers, in the cutting of the large sheets, and in ensuring that the thickness is regular and as thin as is possible. Even greater skills were required where roofs were laid with hipped ends, to reduce the risk of wind damage in extreme conditions. A particularly delightful detail is where panes of glass were introduced to provide a rudimentary rooflight.

Smaller outbuildings, for example lean-to structures, freestanding sheds and stores may have a very low pitch, with the roof covered by large flagstone slabs laid with overlapping joints. Occasionally flagstone roofs were given a slurry of cement or liquid bitumen to cover the joints to improve water tightness, which otherwise might not have been as good as for an orthodox roof. Roofs of large flagstones were once an integral part of the Caithness landscape, now they are becoming increasingly rare. Many, in the back courts of farms, have collapsed or are in a state close to collapse.

14 Roofing slate (blue)

Blue slates became the preferred roofing material throughout much of the county, for example in Latheron the later improved houses of the tenants in the rural areas used blue slate, as did the principal settlements of Dunbeath, Lybster and Wick. In Thurso blue slate is used exclusively on the properties bordering the principal streets. Even in Castletown, the very heart of the flagstone industry, roofs are clad mainly in blue slate. The majority of roofs of the historically important farm at Sibster are of blue slate. Blue slates of Scottish origin would have been relatively easy to obtain by sea, particularly so after the opening of the Caledonian Canal to through traffic in 1822.

A variation on the type of roof mentioned above, consisting of an eaves course of large stone slates, with smaller more orthodox slate courses laid above, is found on the farms at Noss Head and Upper Ackergill which have roofs of blue slate set over an eaves course of large flagstones.

Why was the imported slate preferred to the material available from the local quarries? Stroma offers a clue. The Church of Scotland church, manse, school building and schoolhouse are roofed in blue slate. All the other buildings use local flagstone. More widely, local flagstone roofs are found almost exclusively in the vernacular buildings of the countryside whilst, almost without exception, from around the turn of the nineteenth century, roofs of institutional buildings, be they church, school, drill hall, were finished in Scottish blue slate in accordance with architectural fashion. It was not until the 1950s that Caithness roofing was specified for public housing.

Clay products

Apart from its use for bricks and ridging, references to other clay products, such as roofing, are rare. A diminutive outbuilding (possibly a dairy) was observed at Clyth Mains with a roof of red pantiles laid over a single eaves course of large stone slates. There is evidence that in the early nineteenth century the buildings surrounding the busy harbour at Staxigoe were roofed in red tiles. In a remote area having no brick and tile works, where did the tiles came from: from Banffshire or Fife, which were known for the manufacture of pantiles; or were they ballast in Dutch ships arriving to load grain?

Iron

Apart from the ubiquitous corrugated iron sheeting, use of iron was limited to utilitarian items such as gutters and drainpipes, and even then with little or no embellishment.

Corrugated sheeting was used primarily for the overcladding of older roofs, or to replace roofing materials that may have failed, such as thatching. The material appears as a feature of the landscape, often painted, but more often simply left to rust to an attractive hue once the galvanised layer has eroded away. Alternatively it can become a feature such as at Whitebridge farm (Dunnet) where corrugated iron barns have been painted in strong colours to make a statement in the open landscape.

Corrugated iron buildings of the nineteenth or early twentieth centuries are not common, no doubt because the timber required for the frames needed to provide structural stability was in short supply and, in that period, flagstones were plentiful. Later the county, like many other places, took advantage of former military structures, particularly unwanted Nissen huts. Some are still in use today.

Timber

Historically, there was no home-grown timber and any timber required for building had to be imported or cannibalised from derelict houses or old boats. Roof couples would be reused. Timber was therefore used sparingly, mainly for structural carcassing and finished joinerwork. Until the turn of the twentieth century timber was rarely used decoratively. Unlike the adjoining county of Sutherland, timber framed and lined structures are uncommon except for structures associated with the railway.

Occasionally large cambered timber baulks have been reused supporting masonry over large openings in preference to forming arches of flagstone. They can appear rather ungainly, and sometimes they are creosoted black. A good example is found at the fishing store, or boatshed, adjacent to the harbour at Castlehill where a central post has been introduced to give additional support, but there are also a few examples to be found in the towns.

Other than for windows and doors, the most common use of the material in vernacular building is for dormer heads projecting above wallheads. Very occasionally, but mostly in the towns in the more elaborate houses of the late nineteenth century, roofs with projecting eaves of timber will appear. Roofs of this type in the country are rare, primarily because of the maintenance burdens and the risks to slates 15 being dislodged at the eaves in high winds. Where this feature occurs in some upland areas, the buildings may have been provided for key estate workers.

A form of simple decoration to the gables became popular briefly in Wick, consisting of bargeboards with a scalloped edge, applied in a straightforward manner to the face of the wall. It is found elsewhere in the county but appears to be unique to Caithness. Around the turn of the 20th century, prejudices over decorative woodwork were cast aside and the large suburban villas of Wick and Thurso adopted overhanging eaves of timber fretwork, mirroring a fashion seen in towns such as Dingwall. A further detail which appears to be unique to the county is a preference for timber dormers clad in metal on all faces, no doubt to reduce the burdens of maintenance especially where the tenements are so tall.

A fascinating example of the reuse of timber is found in the Watten Parish at Whitefield, where the construction of both a porch, and a lean-to structure to one of the gables of a cottage, is composed entirely of salvaged railway sleepers, a form of vernacular construction which is found elsewhere on the Scottish mainland.

Modern materials

It is inevitable that older materials will wear out. Even the most durable stone slates will fail in time due to problems of nailsickness or the failure of the original timber pegs, or decay in the roofing timbers from water penetration and woodworm infestation. The replacement of a traditional failed roof covering on a like-for-like basis requires skilled tradesmen and can entail high costs. Substitute materials can therefore seem attractive.

Some of these, such as corrugated iron, are now historic in their own right, adding their own age and patina to the rural scene, and with the added benefit of preserving any underlying archaeology where it may have survived. After the Second World War corrugated asbestos came to be used increasingly for agricultural structures, replacing corrugated iron as the preferred material. Roofs replaced in this material sit well in the landscape, especially when the surface of the sheets becomes colonised by lichens. However, asbestos has a limited life expectancy and its removal and disposal is tightly controlled. Many roofs of corrugated asbestos were seen in a collapsed state during the survey of 2007.

Smooth asbestos slates are occasionally encountered to the roofs of smaller structures and in particular to crofthouses where they may have been re-roofed. The material suffers from the same problems of degradation and the need for licensed removal as corrugated asbestos, and the colour can be washed out so that the material reverts to a natural grey. A roof of asbestos slates looks mean in appearance, lacking substance and texture compared with the natural slate alternatives.

The modernising of old farmhouses and other farm buildings, if not carried through sympathetically, can destroy the original harmony between building and landscape. Natural roofing slates are being replaced by plain concrete tiles when dwellings are modernised. The material is a poor substitute, partly due to the machined regularity of the units; partly because the colour washes out over time; and partly because of the dissonant effect with outbuildings, compounded by the use of round ridges and proprietary plastic verge treatments. Interlocking tiles with raised ridges can have a particularly disruptive effect in town and country. The widespread use of plastic to reduce maintenance, used for rainwater goods, verges, dormer facings, doorsets and replacement windows can also be very damaging to the authenticity of vernacular buildings. Damage to the fabric of older buildings is of course not restricted to the use of plastics – window openings may be widened and new frames to modern profiles in timber, or in the recent past, aluminium inserted with corresponding loss of character.

Farmers encountered during the course of the survey were often unhappy about losing old slate roofs, but saw no other alternative if the farm buildings were to continue in use, not least because of the burdens of health and safety legislation in a working environment.

Building Types

From early times the traditional rural building in Caithness was a hovel, a single room with a fire in its centre (the firehouse), shared by family and livestock, and constructed almost entirely of turf. The addition of a cellar, or bedroom, and the use of stone as well as turf led to the ‘but and ben’ and, from the late 18th century, the evolution of the longhouses. ‘Longhouse’ is a generic but descriptive term for stone walled, rectangular, one room wide, buildings with thatched roofs retaining, until much later, the firehouse, integral byre and single common entrance for humans and livestock of the hovel. Longhouses were often sited on a slope, not least to allow the byre to drain, and grew by adding further rooms to the gable end. Whilst longhouses continued to be built late into the 19th century and lived in 16 for far longer, they were frowned upon by the clergy and gentry who included them within the term ‘hovels’. By the latter part of the 19th century the major step was introduced of physically separating the byre from the dwelling. From as early as the beginning of the 19th century, improved cottages with slate roofs and chimneys were introduced along the prosperous coastal strip, supplanting the longhouse, where they were an integral feature of the planned villages. By the middle of the century they had become more widespread, particularly along the new roads beginning to criss-cross the county. Thus during the early part of the nineteenth century it would have been possible to find the original hovels, several versions of the longhouse and the new improved cottages all inhabited in the rural parishes.

The Longhouse If any building represents the vernacular tradition in Caithness, it is the longhouse. Found scattered across the landscape where the land was too poor to be worth enclosing or improving, or where tenants had been engaged in cattle rearing rather than arable farming, the ruins of longhouses still evoke images of life at a subsistence level in a harsh environment.

Longhouses were built by the tenants with the materials to hand: field stones and flagstones, turf, straw, recycled timbers, and clay for mortar. Earlier examples of longhouses had cruck frames, with timber couples supporting the heavy roof. This arrangement avoided transferring the load of the roof onto the external walls. The structure had few windows and doors which, together with the low set eaves and the heavy roof of turf, clay and straw, ensured longhouses had excellent insulating properties and few draughts, providing tolerable living conditions in the harshest of environments.

Humans and animals entered the extended longhouse though the same single door. Within the longhouse, the focus was the 'firehouse', located at one end of the structure, with the fire in the middle of the floor. Initially the smoke made its exit as best it could. Cattle were housed at the opposite end of the structure, separated from the other occupants by a partition of rudimentary flags. The non bovine inhabitants of the farmyard were given free reign to wander into the 'fire-house'. The arrangement of keeping animals under the same roof reflected the need for the family to keep a close watch on sick animals, and to permit cattle to be over-wintered and fed without the owners having to leave the dwelling in adverse weather. To facilitate the drainage of the byre end of the structure, as well as providing protection against inclement weather, longhouses were commonly situated on gently sloping land in the folds of valleys.

Longhouses were largely confined to the parishes of Latheron, Halkirk, Watten and Reay where their remains may still be seen, singly, or in groups forming small townships, as for example at Crofts of Benachielt, and Broubster.

The usefulness of some former longhouses, long abandoned for habitation, has been prolonged by recladding the roofs with corrugated iron or asbestos sheeting. More often, where no useful purpose is to be served, the buildings have been allowed to decay. Thatched roofs have collapsed, leaving the odd roof truss still standing, or wallheads clinging to the last vestiges of thatch. Decay has been remorseless. At Badereskie (Sheppardstown), a small two-roomed thatched cottage with chimneyheads and a small separate byre built off one of the gables, intact in 1971 and recognised as a good example of the transition from longhouse to improved cottage, is now virtually unrecognisable.

Very few examples of a longhouse complete with its thatched roof now survive in the county, whereas up to fifty years ago there were several of these structures still occupied. The well preserved longhouse at Laidhay is therefore of immense importance. Of even greater importance is The Corr which was lived in and worked as a small farm in the traditional way until very recently. The Corr is unique. Not only does the original extended longhouse survive together with ranges of thatched buildings, the site also demonstrates the natural evolution from croft into small, self-sufficient, working multi function farm. If anything of the unique Caithness longhouse heritage is to be preserved for future generations Laidhay and The Corr must be protected.

Improved tenants cottages and smaller agricultural buildings

It was one of the chief maxims of the agrarian reformers that well-housed tenants made better farmers than poorly housed ones. The ‘improved cottage’ appeared in the planned settlements proposed at the turn of the 19th century along the eastern coastline. Drawings for a typical cottage in Sarclet showed a symmetrical building, with a door at the centre flanked by windows, chimneyheads and skews at each gable, and a slated roof.

As executed, however, the houses were built originally with thatched roofs rather than slates. A particularly well preserved example survives at Ulbster which has a traditional roof with ropes, 17 or simmens to hold down the thatch. The improved cottage, with its slate roof and chimneys at the gables, eventually became the most common form of dwelling for rural workers throughout the county and survived well into the twentieth century before being overtaken in the rural areas by the modern bungalow. Many examples remain in the landscape, bearing ample testimony to the quality of the materials from which they had been constructed.

In Caithness the improved cottage rarely utilised the attic space, differing, in this respect, from the contemporary dwellings to be found in the south. Therefore cottages with dormer windows in the roofspace are not generally found, except in Latheron Parish. The reason for not utilising the attic space may have been to keep the building simple or because it was easier, and more natural, to simply extend the building linearly if there was a need for more living space.

There are many fine surviving examples of small farms, or crofts, that have grown up around improved cottages. A particularly attractive form of development is where some of the structures vary in height. Commonly byres would be added to the end of a cottage gable, as at Badereskie, or separate ranges would be built at right angles to form a small court or enclosure. The roofs of these small, functional structures were invariably covered in large flagstones, creating considerable visual interest in what otherwise may appear to be a haphazard, unplanned ensemble of buildings. Where roads are laid out to a regular pattern, it is not uncommon for cottages to be built gable-end towards the road, reinforcing the ordered geometric pattern. There are still examples of the improved cottage to be found in the towns and villages, for example in Castletown.

With time the improved cottages acquired porches, constructed from stone, flagstone, timber or corrugated iron, surmounted with gablets embellished with decorative features or, in the Brough area, a datestone. Usually, an extension to a standard improved cottage would be added to a gable end, except for a scullery, where it was common for it to be added onto the rear of the house with a lean-to roof. A variation found in a number of the later cottages on Stroma is for large gable-ended extensions to be added onto the front of buildings, forming an L or T- shaped structure.

Houses and small farms Aside from lairds' houses, dwellings of more than one storey were largely confined to the principal settlements in the early 19th century. The good late 18th century farmhouse to be found at Tannach Mains and the fine two storey house of late eighteenth century proportions at Bruan are exceptions, reflecting the absence of a rural middle class. Among the most interesting of the farm sites with a substantial farmhouse is Mains of Ulbster, once owned by the great agricultural improver, Sir John Sinclair. Now it is a scene of sad dereliction, which is made all the more poignant because of its proximity to the Sinclair Mausoleum in Ulbster cemetery. Although in a highly vulnerable state, good farm ranges, including one with crowstepped gables, outbuildings surrounding the house and a two storey granary, remain.

Caithness is rich in compact small to mid-sized farms, showing the full range of agricultural activity: cartsheds; barns with lofts and forestairs; hen-houses, piggeries, byres and stables; and, more rarely, corn drying kilns and cottages for key workers. Unlike the later planned farms these units seem to have grown in an additive manner and include vernacular buildings of the highest calibre. Good examples of abandoned farms of this type are found at Garth (Castletown) and near Borrowston. The former mains farm on Stroma, in its stark dereliction, is an unforgettable sight. Good examples of farm groupings abound in the landscape. The picturesque qualities of Lower Sordale can be viewed from the main road leading to Thurso, showing the manner in which the buildings respond to the topography of the site whilst still appearing planned. Because most farmers lacked capital, the growth of a farm would be determined by the prevailing agricultural economy at any given time – providing within the buildings a unique record of agricultural and economic history.

By the middle of the 19th century farmhouses with more than one storey became increasingly common, one and a half storeys being more common than two full storeys. These structures were not large. The inclusion of a central stair and two attic bedrooms doubled the available floor area compared with the single storey improved cottage, and could accommodate a family in reasonable comfort.. Some of the best unaltered examples, with plain dormers of stone, are to be found in the northern parishes. A good example, uninhabited at the time of the survey, is to be found at Stemster.

Stemster (Canisbay) also shows a fairly common arrangement in which the farm ranges frame the farmhouse symmetrically, a throwback to an early 18th century pattern in which a centrally sited hip- roofed cartshed range became the showpiece of the farm. Near Keiss, there is a late 19th century farmhouse with farm ranges wrapped round the rear of the dwelling to create a sheltered court. The 18 farmhouse – in this case occupied – has extended dormers rising from the wallheads, roofs preserved with the original stone slate, and farm structures which follow the contours of the land.

More elaborate houses began to appear in the remote upland areas towards the end of the 19th century. Where porches were added they, and the dormer heads, were given minor embellishments. The fact that these structures were not usually associated with farm ranges suggests that they had been provided for estate workers. In Latheron Parish they are often found to be in a similar state of decay to the former longhouses and improved cottages of previous generations.

Uninhabited houses in the towns are more common in Wick than elsewhere. Widespread clearance of older property has taken place in Pulteneytown in favour of new, but undistinguished, public housing. There are still numerous properties in Lower Pulteneytown which have yet to benefit from the investment programmes underway in the Conservation Area, with several empty houses in Union Street alone. Even on the more fashionable streets of Wick and Thurso houses lie empty and at risk, the derelict house at 30 Princes Street in Thurso being a particular case. Semi-derelict houses, in need of refurbishment, were also observed in Castletown and in Halkirk.

Lairdsʹ houses Although classified as lairds' houses many of these properties have become farmhouses. Where the farm is being maintained in profitable farming activity, or where the farmhouse, with its garden, has become a private home, the future of these structures has been secured. However, a number of historically important mansion houses have been abandoned due to the burden of their upkeep. In some cases they may have been replaced by new dwellings at the heart of the farm. Caithness is not unique in having this problem, but recent casualties suggest that the protection given to these structures though statutory listing is either inadequate or not enforced as the legislation intended it to be.

Brims Castle, the site of a prominent, but derelict, tower house of the late 16th century has a farmhouse of a later date attached to it. The farmhouse is currently roofed, although in poor condition.

Brabstermire House is listed but is now virtually unrecognisable. This gaunt, but elegant late 18th century structure, originally more prominent with its limewashed walls, dominated the long view southwards towards Lyth. The roof and chimneyheads have been removed in their entirety, the former windows blocked up and the whole structure converted to a modern agricultural shed.

Huna House near John o'Groats has also been desecrated, standing in a state of semi-dereliction in the middle of a scrapyard. Once it was a prestigious country hotel, but any notions of saving the structure are compromised as a result of a modern bungalow having been erected adjacent to the house. Part of the site continues in agricultural use.

Ratter House, within Dunnet Parish, has fallen on hard times. It is the replacement to the house once occupied by the Earls of Caithness (of which the impoverished state had been likened once to a granary) and at which Bishop Pococke arrived from Orkney in 1760. The neatly kept adjacent farm continues in use, largely modernised with portal-framed sheds, while the house languishes in its overgrown garden, windows and slates missing.

Aimster is of considerable historical and architectural interest, consisting of a simple late 18th century mansion house with a tympan (central) gable and roof of blue slates, an adjacent two storey wing for farmworkers' accommodation and a fine range of farm buildings with mainly stone slate roofs. The farm is now redundant and the dwellings are presently uninhabited.

Castlehill and Stirkoke are both casualties of fire damage. James Traill's imposing house and walled garden at Castlehill was depicted by William Daniell in 1818 before Traill's efforts to nurture dense woodland on the site came to fruition and the harbour was erected for the flagstone trade. The house burnt down in 1970, leaving only the walls of the stables and outbuildings standing. These are now somewhat confused with the structures of his flagstone works. Stirkoke was almost certainly the work of David Bryce, and erected in 1858-9. It occupied the centre of a well stocked walled garden and woodlands and may have incorporated parts of an earlier house. Abandoned in favour of a new, more convenient farmhouse in recent times it had been left to decay. A fire destroyed the interior and roof, leaving just the shell standing.

The gate lodges are of interest, for example: the gate lodge to the former Castlehill House; a small dwelling with a hip roof and arched window openings opposite the gate lodge to Hempriggs House; and the east gate lodge to Olrig House, an extraordinary display of exaggerated baronial features in 19 miniature. All are attractive buildings in their own right and should not be ignored. Whilst their design often makes them difficult to extend, there are signs that some are being brought back to life.

Medium Sized Farms

Medium sized farms are the backbone of the Caithness rural economy. The sheer number of farms confirms the historic importance of the industry to the local economy. Through the centuries farming has been the one constant contributor to Caithness’s wealth: fishing and flagstones have come and gone; fission will soon have run its course. Farming is now highly competitive and securing the bottom line leaves little, if any, resource for the sympathetic repair of farm buildings which no longer have any practical agricultural use. The Inventory found significant evidence of decay to farm structures, and, in several cases historically important farm sites have been abandoned, placing them at considerable risk.

The age of improvement introduced model farms into the countryside. Such farms, with their long unrestrained walls and wide roof spans, required sophisticated construction and a considerable investment by the farmer. The focal point in many farm complexes was the long cartshed with a loft above. These varied from between three to seven arched bays, depending on the size of the farm, and were often blessed with the type of hipped roof commonly found on churches. The ranges would be laid out symmetrically behind the cartshed in the form of a square. One of the larger examples is at Brabsterdorran, which had an impressive seven-bay unit before modification. The farmhouse was set to one side with its own garden except in rare cases where it was located as the centre of the composition.

Kiln barns were rare, but where they occur they can be significant architectural features. The rounded end to the barn at Clyth Mains shows how longhouses evolved to include a kiln barn. A further example is found at Hillhead Farm on the outskirts of Wick. To the west of Wick, at Sibster Farm, a bottle kiln can be found. None of these structures are in good repair. Sibster is an outstanding farm complex in which most agricultural activities can be seen, with fine ranges of buildings, including a roofed horsegang and a brick flue for the steam threshing machine. The farm is no longer working, and the whole site is at risk.

Some of the medium-sized farms of the later 19th century were laid out formally to architects' designs, based around a farm square or cattle court, others, of equal interest, grew organically. Granaries were typically long structures of one and a half storeys (occasionally two storeys), approached by forestairs, with ventilation apertures and loft doors breaking up the eaves line. These structures, with their long horizontal forms, provide a striking image in the countryside. Small and medium sized farms shared the same characteristic of linear additive structures of different ages, functions and heights, creating an image of great vitality within the rural landscape. Buildings were invariably roofed in stone slate, except in Latheron Parish where the larger farms were usually roofed in blue slate. Occasionally roofs were clad in precision cut and laid flagstone slabs. Few were found in good order and several roofs of this type had collapsed.

Farmhouses accompanying the medium-sized farms were occupied and kept in good order except where the farms had been abandoned, such as at Shorelands, near Ackergill. At Calder Mains (Halkirk) the farm continues in productive use but the farmhouse survives only in a derelict state. Another casualty, the 18th century Skinnet House, described by Elizabeth Beaton as being a 'charming and unusual essay in naïve rural classicism' is, with the later interesting farm buildings, now in a wholly neglected state. There are several interesting small to medium-sized farms in Latheron Parish, including the home farm and stables at Berriedale, set in beautiful wooded surroundings shared with other estate buildings.

Large farm complexes

The large mains farms are impressive. Usually, but not always, located a short distance from the walls enclosing the mansion house, these farms may have grown organically from an earlier house on the site, as at Sandside, or they may have been planned as showpieces in their own right, for example the principal farm range at Barrock and the symmetrically planned farm complex at Nottingham Mains built as a model farm in 1842. Both demonstrate how modern buildings can be incorporated without interfering with the older farm buildings.

The largest farms in the county are a cornucopia of interesting structures relating to farming in the latter half of the 19th century, including the accommodation provided for farmworkers. In many respects these farms were the forerunners of a modern agribusiness, having the potential to harness the latest mechanical inventions and being able to cover a wide range of activities. As a consequence the individual buildings within a single complex can have considerable importance.

20 The showpiece farm at Ackergill Mains (1878) is another fine example of a planned farm complex. The two tall brick chimneys were used by the steam boilers driving the threshing machines. In this carefully organised complex, the farm cottages were separated from the farm structures which are of a much larger scale. Olrig Mains Farm is a good example of an older farm complex, formerly attached to a mansion house, where several farming activities were carried out on the same site.

The larger farm units are confined mainly to the northern parishes, where the leading ‘improvers’ focused their efforts at the turn of the 19th century. Other large farms with early ranges of underutilised buildings include Gerston, and Sibster Farm (both Halkirk Parish), Brabsterdorran (Bower Parish), Lynegar and Strath (both Watten), and Lythmore (Thurso Parish).

Grain and other mills

Grain mills are among the larger edifices to be seen in the landscape and those in Caithness are of particular interest. Some of these mills grew to be large industrial complexes, the largest of them being close to the harbour at Castletown and fed by the large productive farms in Olrig’s hinterland.

Mills are found adjacent to most watercourses in the county. They are generally compact and three storeys high (occasionally more). Virtually all of the waterwheels serving the mills and threshing machines have been dismantled. An exception is the wheel and lades system at Achingale where a former grain mill is being restored, and where the waterpower systems, including a tiny second external wheel, remain intact.

The Caithness mills had distinctive kiln vents located on the roof ridges, of a box shape and normally in pairs, lined in timber with a ventilating cowl at the head. The arrangement at the John o'Groats Mill at Huna carries the vestiges of this tradition, although the ventilators may have been modified at some stage. The box ventilators at the mill at Achingale were removed when the distinctive roof above the kiln was taken down.

Decades have passed since any of the mills operated, and, apart from those that have been restored and converted to other uses, they are generally in a poor condition, with roofs and key features, such as the characteristic loading bays and hoists, disintegrating in an alarming number of cases. The survey could not establish how much internal equipment survives. It is believed that the majority of the original machinery at the John o' Groats Mill remains. The millstones remain in position at the Dunbeath Mill but the internal waterwheel has been stripped out and the pyramidal roofs serving two separate kilns taken down.

The first grain mill at Watten was established in 1742 and subsequently enlarged on at least two occasions in the19th century. The mill is unprotected by listing and at considerable risk. The small mill complex to the north of the bridge at Lyth, is also in a sadly decayed state compared to the large mill on the opposite side of the bridge which has been adapted to residential use.

Very occasionally a mill was incorporated within a farm complex, in which case the structures would be relatively small in size and frequently in a poor state of repair. An exception is the rather grand mill of three storeys at Skiall Farm where the waterwheel and lade have been dismantled. The use of waterpower for threshing avoided the need for covered horsegangs. At the well preserved girnal at Ham, a mill was added at a later date.

Small district mills populated many of the upland villages. Most survive only as unrecognisable ruins, only their size and location close to a watercourse provides clues as to their original purpose.

Several examples of converted mills were observed, for example the North Shore Pottery at the Mill of Forse, and the old mill at Forss which has been converted successfully for residential use. There is a desperate need to save the remaining important structures at risk, for which the future appears bleak.

Two rarities were found. The first is located prominently on the foreshore at Crosskirk, close to the historic 12th century St Mary's Chapel, and is believed to have been a snuff mill. It stands forlorn, boarded up and festooned with warning notices. The gables lean outwards alarmingly. Without question it is a building of considerable historic and architectural importance. Judging by the steep pitch of the roof, clad in stone slate, and the crowstepped gable it was probably erected around the mid 18th century. The second is the waterpowered estate sawmill at Berriedale, which is believed to have much of its machinery intact even though the mill is now redundant. It shares with other estate buildings, including a grinding mill, a spectacular site overhanging the river. 21 Harbour buildings, store‐houses and ice houses

The working harbours around the coastline of Caithness, from the natural havens to the busy ports of Wick, Thurso and Scrabster, have left an astonishingly rich legacy. Perhaps the vertiginous steps carved out of the face of the rock at Whaligoe is the most striking example, illustrating the character and hardiness of the people who maintained this cove as a fishing station for the best part of 100 years.

Caithness exported grain for many centuries, and girnals for the trade are reputed to have existed at Staxigoe from at least 1590. From the 18th to the early 20th century the harbours were key to the export of grain, and for the success of the fishing and flagstone industries. An impressive testimony to this heritage is the grain girnal adjacent to the harbour at Ham. Converted at a later date to a mill, it was erected in the late 18th century as an imposing structure of three full storeys of five bays with paired outer window bays. The addition of an extra storey and a new roof around the turn of the 19th century illustrates the demand for grain at that time. Today, it, like the structures at Staxigoe, lies derelict. At Sarclet and Mid Clyth, where the havens were adapted for small fishing vessels, there remain good late eighteenth century store-houses, of two and three storeys respectively. The structures are well hidden but the fact that they survive up to eaves level in such a hostile environment is an indication of how well they had been constructed. At Lybster a similar structure has fared less well.

Commercial curing houses were part of the planned layout of the expanded harbour at Pulteneytown. Built against the cliff face, they were impressive structures, sharing a world of cooperages, kippering sheds and creelmakers' workshops. A typical curing shed now lies safely within the premises of the Wick Heritage Centre. The remainder are no more than gaunt shells. The herring market on the quayside at Wick Harbour has been preserved by the Wick Society.

The risk to the last of the unaltered kippering sheds in Thurso has been increased even further by the demolition of some surrounding historic houses. Other buildings close to the old harbour are now barely recognisable but for the distinctive roof form with the raised ventilated ridge. The window openings on a large general storage building are indicative of the late 18th century and are still of architectural importance, despite extensive despoilation to the building.

The smaller harbours to the north of Wick, and along the Pentland Firth, were more accessible than those of the south-eastern coastline. Elegant buildings were erected at Sandside, Keiss and Lybster harbours, and converted to residential use or, at Lybster, to a heritage centre. Many of the smaller harbours have attractive stone fishing sheds, or small store-houses, most of which have fallen out of regular use and are in a decaying state. Examples were seen at Scarfskerry and Auckengill, both having stone slate roofs in poor repair. The lighthouse store at Brough Harbour, built in 1830 to serve the lighthouse at Dunnet Head, has been re-roofed in corrugated asbestos.

Beach or estuarial fishing of the lucrative salmon was practised mainly at Berriedale and Dunbeath. However the fact that a significant number of other harbours had icehouses suggests that salmon fishing and curing were more widespread. The largest icehouses were erected at Castletown, at the rear of the harbour. The icehouse, salmon fishing bothy and store-house at Portormin Harbour, Dunbeath, are in the good hands of the Dunbeath Heritage Preservation Trust but the remains of earlier store- houses or what might have been larger structures appear to be at risk. At Berriedale, the distinctive store-house, white rendered and with crowstepped gables (built in front of the icehouse) and the long, low row of fishermens' cottages appear very much at risk from neglect and, perhaps too, from rising sea levels. The roofs of the cottages are close to the point of collapse.

During the 19th century the lifeboat service, with its distinctive sheds and elevated ramps, increased in importance. The practice of keeping lifeboats afloat in the harbours at all tides has made these iconic buildings redundant and without obvious use. Good examples are found at Wick and at Ackergill.

Tarry sheds, of timber protected by coatings of tar or mineral felt, were once a common sight around the harbour quays, serving as chandleries and for other purposes. There are relatively few left although a survivor remains in use adjacent to Thurso harbour.

Industrial buildings, workshops and transport

Caithness is losing touch with its industrial past as buildings slip into a state of dereliction. Most of the industrial premises were small in scale, the flagstone and ropework yards being the exceptions. Of the flagstone industry the most substantial remains are found at Castlehill, where a start has been made on recovering the extensive former works. At Harrow harbour, next to the icehouse, a trace of the flagstone works remains. The flagstone quarries left little permanent remains although some small 22 structures with stone slate roofs and a brick chimney are just visible amongst the vegetation at Achscrabster quarry. The ropeworks fared even worse. Its last vestiges lie in a store-house at the junction between Macrae Street and Brown Place in Pulteneytown.

One of the first licensed distilleries of the early nineteenth century at Geise, has survived, albeit in a ruined state, but there are no obvious signs of the large, late 19th century distillery at Gerston, which was bulldozed after the Great War. The old brewery at Thurso has been demolished to make way for new housing.

Smithies and foundries

Only a few operating smithies were found in a survey undertaken in 1977. Thirty years later few of these sites were recognisable as smithies. The splendid exception until the summer of 2008 had been the smithy at Watten, still operating with its original equipment and tools. The building is in desperate need of repair and the present blacksmith is elderly, with no successor. The estate smithy at Berriedale is redundant but has been maintained in good condition along with the estate laundry, which still has its original boilers and cast iron warming cupboards. The foundry at Millbank in Thurso, is in a derelict state. It shares a prominent riverside site with other buildings of historic and architectural importance including the restored former grain mill. Like the foundry, the remainder of the site is in desperate need of preservation. A late nineteenth century brick building, possibly an old workshop or a part of the foundry that existed on the site at one stage, may be found to the rear of one of the service stations on Francis Street (Wick).

Freestanding corrugated iron structures are not common in Caithness and where they do appear they are being used for storage purposes. A pair of large sheds at the eastern end of Loch Watten, adjacent to the railway line, may have been a goods transfer shed, or possibly part of Camp 165. A prefabricated corrugated iron building with timber embellishments used for storage in a backyard at Scarfskerry, may, in a previous life, been a small community hall, or even a place of worship. A large corrugated iron shed that could have been a workshop or garage lies near to the crossroads at Brabsterdorran. Now its walls are propped up with timber shoring to prevent the roof from spreading.

Overlooking Bignold Park at the edge of Pulteneytown is an unusual structure of brick, with roofs of corrugated iron that is presently used as builders’ merchants premises. On the road leading north out of Wick there is a former industrial complex, identified by three gables with decorative bargeboards set back from the road, that would appear to have been associated with the steam sawmill and timber yard on the site around the turn of the 20th century.

The railway left a legacy of lineside structures. At Georgemas Junction the two storey stone railway station building and former waiting room have been modernised. Adjacent to the platform is a small corrugated iron shed. At Thurso there is a small isolated timber shed that would have been associated with the former goods sidings. There are surviving relics of the dismantled railway line between Wick and Lybster, of which the most interesting are the former station buildings. The small timber building at Thrumster with a canopy supported by decorative iron brackets projecting over the platform has been preserved, and is understood to be part of a wider environmental improvement scheme for the site.

Ecclesiastical buildings

In the North, Caithness has some of the finest medieval churches still used as places of worship. Before the advent of lighthouses in the 19th century, the churches of Canisbay, Dunnet and Reay, harled and limewashed in a brilliant white, served as beacons for sailors navigating the Pentland Firth. Later churches have fared less well. Built to serve the needs of a growing rural population, their numbers increased after The Disruption, and yet again with the advent of the United Free Church. Now, a falling population, an element of reconciliation and the growing secularisation of society, has led to an accelerating number of unused and derelict churches across the county. Now the only United Free Church still in use is Olrig.

In the National Church the most prominent casualties have been the chapels-of-ease, provided in the 1830s and 1840s for those populations distant from a parish church. The finest of these churches is St Mary’s Church, Lybster. Built in 1836, it has an orthodox layout, with characteristic multipaned windows constructed from tiny panes of glass, for which there was a fondness in Caithness around this time, and astragals that are interlaced with great intricacy within the arched openings. The building is now at a crux between a new life with the Northlands Glass Studio or ruin. Also at risk are the T-plan chapels-of-ease, such as that at Shurrery. These are distinctive buildings, with tall, regularly spaced windows, prominent in the windswept open landscapes in which they appear.

23 The late 1820s parliamentary church at Berriedale, still with its original cast-iron windows, is now redundant, as is the unlisted church at the eastern end of Castletown. Built in 1840, the latter hosts an interesting set of decaying wartime paintings of great significance. Another potential casualty is the majestic Bridge Street Church in Wick, designed in 1862-3 by Gray of Berwick.

In the 1840s, to meet the demand for new churches caused by The Disruption, the Free Church adopted a standard church design unique to Caithness. It consisted of a nave with two parallel bays, each bay having its own gabled roof, supported internally by cast iron columns. A central valley gutter ran along the longitudinal join between the two roofs and, because it was difficult to maintain, proved to be a terminal weakness to the extent that some of the roofs had to be removed, leaving only the shell standing. A fine example, which retained its roof until recently, was built at Shebster to serve the Reay congregation. It has a wall of ashlar masonry at ground level and is harled above. The gables were fitted with octagonal apex stones and crowned by a central octagonal bell tower. Elsewhere lack of funds curbed ambition, for example, a tower might have been intended for the church at Barrock. The church at Watten is in poor condition but appears to be still in use. In all other cases the churches are empty, or have other uses such as storage (Castletown). The former Free Church at Bruan, a more conventional structure, stands proud but gaunt and empty on a prominent site, shared with the later United Free church. Both buildings have been declared redundant.

The demise of the Free Church buildings is equalled by that of those belonging to the United Free Church. The majority were assumed into the Church of Scotland when reunification took place in 1929 and, of these, just a few have continued in use. The latest to be made redundant was Latheron in 2007. The distinctive contemporary Arts and Crafts manses have largely survived.

Chapels for other denominations or sects were not common in the county. There is a disused chapel at Latheronwheel. A remote, isolated and abandoned chapel near Skirza still retains its internal fittings. On Stroma, the prominent shell of the former Church of Scotland has been modified for use as an agricultural store, while the former Baptist Chapel has been reduced to a state of dereliction by the fierce winds. A disused late 19th century mission hall in Pulteneytown bears testimony to the collapse of the fishing industry in the 1930s. Now an auction house, with windows boarded up, it stands isolated amidst widespread site clearance and continuing decay. An earlier chapel on Union Street stands empty. A number of churches now conduct their services in halls at the rear, a measure of the degree to which upkeep of places of worship has become a burden.

Some churches have found new uses. A redundant Victorian church at Lybster has been converted to residential accommodation. A chapel in Thurso now houses the Air Training Corps in the tradition of the old drill halls, and the impressive structure erected for the Free Church in 1868-71 in Olrig Street (Thurso) is now a funeral director's office. At Brabsterdorran the church is now a community hall.

Educational buildings

Rural Board schools, erected after the 1872 Education (Scotland) Act, readily detected by having walled enclosures, by the number of tall windows, and by the regularity of their appearance, are scattered across the countryside. The schoolhouse is usually nearby and roofs, without exception, are covered in blue slates, no matter where the buildings are located. The schools have separate entrances and small distinctive external WCs. Schoolhouses have generally been kept in good repair whereas the majority of schoolrooms have suffered.

Whilst it is possible that the school on the braes above Berriedale predates the 1872 Act, the majority of the local schools built prior to the Act have been swept away. The small, remote community at Achavanich has an interesting school building, which, despite its smallness has separate entrances for the pupils. At Mey the boundary walls were taken down when the school ceased to operate and the building assumed a new lease of life as a service station, a use that also failed in time, leaving the structure redundant once more. On Stroma, the main school structure still survives but the gable end of the building has been removed to allow its use as sheep pens. However, within the former playground there is a small classroom annex, clad in corrugated iron, the interior of which remains largely as it had been left.

The picture is not a wholly bleak one. The former school at Lyth has been converted to an arts centre, and a redundant school at Lybster has been given a new lease of life as a result of the successful conversion to studio space for Northlands Glass.

Drill halls and military buildings

24 The 1st Caithness Rifle volunteers were established in Thurso in 1860, followed by other units in Wick and elsewhere, and absorbed into the Territorial Army in 1908. The main activity was drill practice for which drill halls were provided. A surprising number of these halls survive in Caithness, where they fulfil a need for indoor community space. The buildings are at risk in the longer term, with that at Mey, its gables adorned by the characteristic scalloped edge to the bargeboards, looking particularly so.

The hangars at Wick Airport are among the largest structures to be seen in the Caithness landscape, and are visible from several directions. They dominate the burgh of Wick, particularly when viewed from the south. Given their vast scale, and the imposed responsibilities for maintenance, they must be considered to be at risk. At the very least, they merit being recorded, if this has not been done already, so that their significance can be better understood and appreciated.

Institutional and public buildings

The town hall at Thurso is impressive architecturally. It is currently undergoing major renovation, both structurally and in terms of use. Traill Hall, at the eastern end of Castletown was provided for the community as a public hall and reading room in 1866 by James Traill's daughter, Margaret. It is an idiosyncratic building with pronounced vertical features but is boarded up awaiting a new use.

Shops and retail

Wick has by far the greatest numbers of empty shops, and empty flats above shops, recorded in the survey. Empty shops and buildings in poor repair were observed on Bridge Street, and in the upper parts of the High Street. Some of these three-storey structures are of the late 19th century, whereas the block at the junction of Bridge Street and High Street and a shop in poor order at the eastern end of High Street all appear to be early 19th century.

The many small shops in the streets adjacent to the harbour, in Lower Pulteneytown, and throughout the residential area of Telford's planned settlement, are now disused and often derelict. A property at the junction of Smith Terrace and Macarthur Street, is distinguished by a central clock tower in the French Second Empire style. Only one of the generous ground floor shopfronts is in use, and the flatted first floor accommodation is uninhabited. Falling just outside the Conservation Area, with the ruin of the former bakehouse below, it sets a real challenge for the regeneration of the area.

Thurso suffers from similar but lesser problems in the town centre. Above and behind a florid sandstone ashlar frontage on the High Street the premises seem to be uninhabited. To the rear of a chemist's shop on the north side of Traill Street are two vacant buildings, of which one may be of architectural importance with surviving 12-pane sash and case windows. A single storey shop on Olrig Street, with a highly modulated frontage of imported ashlar sandstone, rich in architectural detail, was empty at the time of the survey. In the centre of the town, on Grove Lane, a three storey structure with small window openings may be of an early 18th century date. Although the building has been superficially modernised with a blue slate roof and an applied coating of cement render, it may prove to be of some architectural and historical importance. It is unlisted.

The Questions of Merit and Uniqueness

Does the heritage of vernacular and redundant buildings in Caithness have architectural merit? And if so, is it unique to the area?

There are no buildings for which it can be said that leading Scottish architects were involved in their creation, and the contribution of the celebrated civil engineers –Telford, Joseph Mitchell, and the Stevensons – which was of great practical value, but, with the exception of Pulteneytown and one or two churches, left little in terms of building legacy.

There are peculiarities in ways of building, and in the design of certain building types that are demonstrably unique to the area. For example: the planned farm groupings from the age of improvement; the double-aisled churches created for the Free Church after The Disruption, and the later churches and manses designed for the United Free Church by Sinclair Macdonald; the use of flagstone; the pure lines of the slate roofs. . The Inventory calls into question the practice which lists buildings to be protected by legislation, and the assumption that such lists are guides to merit which are to be wholly relied upon. The weaknesses of the present system are: lists can produce distortions, not least in how relative values are measured; 25 lists can become out of date (with the exception of the burghs, the lists for Caithness were prepared around twenty years ago) and, on the evidence of the survey programme, are less than adequate. The clearest evidence for this view is Stroma. Stroma provides no less than seventy entries for the Inventory but is not protected by any historic environment legislation other than for the lighthouse and mausoleum.

The value of Caithness’s building heritage lies not in reputation or theoretical ideas but in a unique style of building fashioned from purely functional considerations of need, environment and materials: a style which fits comfortably within its landscape, is timeless and visually satisfying.

Should vernacular building ever be classified as architecture? Good architecture concerns itself with the domestic, the practical as well as the aesthetic. In Caithness, the practicalities of isolation, a harsh environment and a limited palette of materials other than field stones and flagstones gave rise to buildings of pure forms derived from simple planes and matching colours and textures, as if the wind in its wisdom had cleansed them of all protrusions, and all fussiness.

Vernacular buildings, above all else, speak of the landscape in which they sit and of the people who lived, worked, and died in them. The memory of past generations and the hardships they faced finds real expression in the ruined shells standing defiantly against the elements. Nowhere else in the United Kingdom can this to be experienced with anything like the same force, or even on the same scale.

Risks to the heritage

Analysis of the resource

The 2007 Survey reveals certain structures to be at risk. The nature and degree of the risk depends on circumstances, for example:. does the structure, or site, still fulfil its original purpose; has a new sympathetic use been found; or is it redundant or at risk of being made redeundant?

Of the buildings either being underused or not used at all, improved cottages and farm buildings form the two largest categories. Many cottages, still repairable, may not be attractive for reuse because of their remote location. Farms, except for those on the less fertile uplands, are generally close to public roads and public utilities. The obstacle to recovering farm ranges has more to do with the degree to which conversion to other uses may conflict with the ongoing activities of a working farm.

Mills, girnals and harbour store-houses are, generally, large, impressive structures with access to public roads. The store-houses at Clyth and Sarclet, where the harbours have been abandoned, are exceptions. The redundant church buildings will also be accessible in the main.

Buildings that are still thatched, and for which the roof structures are still sound, may have historical importance and, increasingly, rarity value. The Inventory shows how rapidly this resource is disappearing. Whilst ruined longhouses are not rare, their potential for reuse is low compared with other buildings. Their value lies in their powerful evocation of past communities and past ways of life.

The following parts of this section address the principal risks in generic terms.

Social and demographic change

Caithness has been an exporter of its natural resources: it has never had a strong manufacturing base, nor has it had a substantial local market. Therefore the collapse of the flagstone and herring industries in the first decades of the twentieth century, together with the decreasing need for farm workers, hit local prosperity dramatically, and caused many to leave Caithness for good. Nevertheless, the depopulation of the area started much earlier, in the 1860s. Even now the population of the county is lees than two thirds of what it was in 1861and is still less than it was when the bulk of the structures recorded for the Inventory were standing. Nor is there a tradition of earlier generations preserving buildings – how many longhouses were simply ‘ploughed in’?

The arrival of Dounreay in the 1950s brought about an influx of new residents. The need to house a large number of professional and skilled workers and their families quickly could only be met by building new houses on greenfield land in the established centres. There was no immediate benefit in saving older buildings. Nor was it helped much in subsequent years as Dounreay staff returned south, built new houses, or bought their ‘Authority’ houses. Only very recently has there been evidence of dilapidated rural dwellings being reconstructed for residential use as a matter of choice.

26 The rationalisation of the provision of education by focusing on the main population centres has led to the closure of rural schools. Nor is Caithness immune from the slide towards the secularisation of society, as shown by the number of churches that have been declared redundant. With little prospect of being maintained, most are on the road to ruin and desolation.

Some incomers have been attracted to Caithness because of the relatively low land and property values, with the result that some investment has been made in rundown property and in the rural infrastructure. Nevertheless, this is dwarfed by the recent growth in new dwellings.

Fiscal policies

Fiscal policies, and confusion about them, impact strongly on whether a property is repaired, converted to an alternative use, or allowed to decay. As an example of this, an empty property cannot be used so as to avoid paying rates. Evidence was found that where a closing order had been served on the owner of a property, this was seen as a disincentive to carrying out repairs to the building, or even adapting it for new uses. The property is widely assumed to have been condemned.

Because VAT is applied to repairing or converting an existing building but not to new domestic construction work, there is a positive incentive to destroy existing vernacular buildings, no matter what their value, so as to replace it with a new one on either on the same, or on an adjacent site. The position is made worse because the legislation is confusing, particularly with respect to churches and listed buildings. The conservation lobby has campaigned long and hard, for the removal of VAT on historic building repairs and, to date, without much success.

Government policy over the past decade has favoured increasingly forms of public/private initiatives for the provision of public buildings, particularly in the fields of healthcare and education. These schemes, in which the risk passes to the private consortium offering to supply the services, is risk averse, to the extent that new facilities will be preferred to altering or extending existing ones. In Caithness the removal of the Board or Parish schools from use is one example of this mindset, another is the rush to Business Parks without considering first whether existing unused buildings might be suitable, possibly with greater benefit to the community.

Conflicting policies

The consequences of applying closing notices on redundant or uninhabited properties is at odds with national planning guidance which encourages finding new compatible uses for redundant historic buildings and ensuring that existing uses are given the best chance of continuing, especially if these reflect the original purpose for which the structure had been erected.

The Highland Council’s structure and local plans incorporate general planning policies based on national planning guidance, including policies relating to the protection and preservation of historic buildings and scheduled ancient monuments. Properties that are listed, or lie within a Conservation Area, will have a measure of protection but, in reality, the protection for the vast quantity of structures that make up Caithness’s built heritage is non-existent.

Lack of formal recognition of these structures as a resource implies to official minds that they are devoid of any value, particularly in relation to proposals for demolition to allow new construction as a tangible gesture to stimulate the economy. Despite local and national guidelines in relation to new buildings in the countryside, planning policies appear to permit the erection of new buildings where older structures may have existed previously. Too often older buildings will be demolished without having regard to how their useful life might be extended, or how they might be adapted.

A lack of effective planning controls has allowed new housing to become an over-dominant feature in the landscape. Whereas most traditional rural houses in Caithness were rarely ever more than one and a half storeys in height, and the vast majority, with the exception of the lairds’ houses, were single storey, new houses are commonly a full two storeys high, increasing their impact on the landscape.

Funding patterns

There is evidence of early schemes of house improvement in Caithness, mostly in improving farm workers’ cottages, and the drawings within the Sinclair Macdonald collection show how this was a regular source of work for local architects from the 1920s onwards. There is also evidence on farms and estates of basic extensions to dwellings under the Agricultural Acts of the 1950s, and of later schemes that were operating in the 1970s and 1980s aimed at improving the basic standard amenities such as electrical rewiring, the provision of a water supply and proper sanitation and cooking facilities. 27

A recurrent source of concern among farmers related to the removal of capital grants for the repair of farm buildings. Although farm diversification schemes gave some encouragement to seeking new uses for redundant farm buildings, these had also been abandoned. In reality, when the scheme was in operation, the uses to which farm ranges could be put were quite restrictive: for instance bunkhouses and farm shops.

Grants at one stage were available for improvement works from local enterprise companies as part of a wider programme of regeneration and environmental improvement schemes, and also from the Scottish Tourist Board to stimulate the growth of tourism in the local economy. Equally, improving access to the countryside might have attracted capital funding for infrastructure projects from the Countryside Commission before that body was absorbed into Scottish Natural Heritage. Also lost, and without the prospect of being resurrected in the present climate of budget constraints in local government, is the pot of money that had been allocated for helping owners with repairs to historic buildings, established under the Civic Amenities Act (1964). The sums involved were not large, and the scheme was discretionary, but it was crucial in encouraging houseowners to undertake essential repairs where no other funding was available.

Compared with twenty years ago this is a bleak picture. It is still too early to comment on the effectiveness of the Scottish Rural Development Programme (introduced recently by Scottish Ministers), nor whether the repair of historic buildings will be a priority for the area boards appointed to administer the programme.

In the present economic climate funding is very tight and applications to any of the major funding bodies face intense competition with only the most meritorious cases being successful. The basis for awarding grants has also changed. The economic value of the building and the contribution that it might make to the wider objectives of Scottish Ministers are now required to be taken into account and conservation has become less of a priority. Consequentially the ability of building preservation trusts to take on projects and raise funding for them has been badly dented. In a challenging funding environment, for Caithness to succeed it has to overcome the twin hurdles of remoteness and its sheer numbers of redundant buildings.

There is a good news story in the area. The joint HLF/Historic Scotland funding for the Wick Pulteneytown Conservation Area through the Townscape Heritage Initiative (THI) and Conservation Area Renewal Scheme (CARS) is having a marked effect on the regeneration of the area, bringing buildings that had been long redundant back into life.

Awareness and Indifference

Indifference towards the historic environment exists at many levels, from Government to an individual; from complete dismissal to a lack of understanding; from a chronic lack of funding to onerous or conflicting conditions imposed by funders.

Local traditions, customs, buildings and history establish the identity of an area. If these are not understood, or considered even to be important, what survives as a legacy of that past will not be properly valued. Caithness shares with other remote areas just such a lack of awareness by those from the remainder of the ‘mainland’. One aspect of this, potentially very damaging to establishing local identity in the historic environment, is the way in which, without regard to what has been recorded on the ground, vernacular building traditions in remote parts are ‘averaged’ over areas which might have significantly different traditions. Prime examples of this practice are provided by the zones defined by Brunskill and Naismith in the maps prepared for their respective influential publications. Unfortunately, the tidy conclusions arrived at in this manner influence the way in which the vernacular resource is viewed.

Damage can be caused to the fabric of historic buildings inadvertently, from a lack of awareness or in an understandable desire to reduce the burden of maintenance. Examples of this are: the modernisation of a dwelling with replacement windows; the application of modern cement renders; the use of concrete tiles on roofs; or the replacement of cast iron rainwater goods with short-lived plastic.

Very occasionally a building will have been restored with the best of intentions, using materials that can be expensive and which replicate the originals, but damage has resulted inadvertently nonetheless.

The lesson is that we need to raise the profile of our vernacular heritage and the skills required amongst owners, craftsmen, builders and even professionals. Along with raising the profile must go tuition in 28 the traditional building skills and materials appropriate to the area. Finally, there needs to be inducement and encouragement for this to happen.

It may appear necessary for a planning authority and elected representatives to grant planning consent for a new development that devalues an old building, or results in its unnecessary demolition. A better the outcome would be for the old building to be incorporated usefully and sensitively into the new development. If a prominent historic building is neglected for long enough it will become an eyesore and demolition to make way for a new development, can be presented as a public benefit.

An owner’s actions may be driven by concerns of public liability and health and safety. One owner of a small farm wished to demolish the old buildings, which were in poor repair and dated back to the early nineteenth century. At its heart was a symmetrical plan with an archetypal central cartshed range and three arched openings, and ranges set back to either side around a central court with the roofs of stone slates to the rear. The farm was no longer in use, and his son, who moved abroad, had no desire to continue with the business. He saw no option other than to demolish it, and that was what he proposed to do. This story is not untypical. Other farmers expressed concerns over the state of ranges which might, at best, be used only infrequently, and saw no option but to replace the original roof finishes with modern cladding as the stone slates were failing and had become a health and safety risk. Without sources of funding to help owners, these concerns will multiply.

The availability of skills and materials

All historic buildings and monuments will suffer decay through their lives. With care, decay can be arrested, but in the wrong hands it can be also be accelerated. There is ample evidence of Caithness’s historic environment being damaged in this way.

Thatched roofs need regular maintenance and pose particular problems if the property is not inhabited or if there is no longer a thatching capability in the area. Nor is bringing craftsmen in from other areas necessarily the answer: apart from the possibility of disproportionate cost, there is the risk of the local traditional way of thatching being replaced by methods imported from other parts of the UK.

Stone slate roofs in Caithness are essentially long-lived, but cannot last forever. There is, potentially, a source of second hand material but this will be exhausted in time. There is as yet no source of good new slates that match the existing slates for historic building repair projects (or, indeed, new work). The flagstone industry appears to be geared primarily towards producing high quality paving. Where flagstone has been dressed for use in walling, the nature of the process produces a harsh sawn finish out of keeping with older masonry work. The deep brown material used for walling is rich in iron, which will leach out if used as roofing slate. Finding roofing slates which replicate the variations in colour from the many quarries that existed at one time has become close to impossible.

There is a strong demand across the county for drystane dyking, but the skills do not yet appear to have transferred across to masonry work. A perceived dearth of skills in traditional building appears to be replicated among building professionals. Indeed the local building industry as a whole has moved away from undertaking conservation work.

Statutory protection

Statutory protection, based upon the current listing system, poses a risk to Caithness’s building heritage. There are at least three reasons why this is the case: the listing system may not embrace all aspects of the historic environment; the system is widely understood to mean that unlisted buildings have no value; the lists are often out of date; and, the system can be ineffectual.

Property owners, developers, planners, and Historic Scotland all place great store on whether a building is listed or scheduled, as do architectural historians and amenity societies when providing advice on a building’s merit to those in authority. If the listing system is flawed, then the whole planning system as it applies to building heritage can be open to error and misinterpretation. As an example listing has signally failed to protect the category B listed former mansion house at Brabstermire.

It is not possible for Historic Scotland to keep all lists up to date, and consequently lists in any area may not reflect changing values in what may be considered important through rarity, or through a greater knowledge-based appreciation of the resource and its value. The vernacular heritage, in particular, is not adequately represented on the lists. In this respect, the field survey work on Caithness farms undertaken by RCAHMS has been particularly beneficial, although it has not yet been published and the findings are not yet in the public domain.

29 Natural decay

No matter what incentives are put in place to encourage the repair of the fabric of historic buildings, the greatest risk to which they are subjected is that of natural decay. Without maintenance the life of any building will be short-lived. By and large, the basic building materials of Caithness are robust and, coupled with well-developed local skills in traditional construction, the fabric will last longer than in most other areas, even allowing for the extremes of climate to be encountered.

Thatch, being an organic material, has a very limited life, and demands a regular cycle of maintenance and of replacement if the finish is to survive. Once the cycle of repair has been broken the breakdown of the roofing material is very rapid, and this is illustrated no better than on the Island of Stroma where a significant number of stone slated roofs remain intact, while all of the thatched roofs have perished. Even so, without repair, roofs clad in slates will fail ultimately, whether it be from timber infestation by wood-boring beetles in the supporting structure, from wind damage, from water penetration or from the failure of old nails or timber pegs. During one visit to a small farm while on the survey programme, a neighbour made the observation that on the day preceding the visit a stone slate roof to one of the ranges had collapsed in its entirety, pulling down the roof trusses at the same time. The farm appears in the Inventory report as a model type, and is considered to be of historic importance.

Although the flagstone from the Caithness quarries is inherently highly durable, some of the quality appeared variable. For example highly fissile material appears to have a proneness to delamination caused by impurities in the flagstone seams. In the past the life of such material was extended by limewashing. This produced a hard skin on the face of the masonry due to the unusually high hydraulicity (hardening under water) property of the lime.

It is possible that the early Portland cement renders were applied to walling suffering in this way to prolong life, rather than as an exercise in architectural expression. In general, rubble work was pointed in a strong, dense, lime mortar, not unlike cement in its qualities, which was applied to the face of the joint. This pointing fails ultimately, and washes out, leaving the clay core of the wall exposed to rain and frost, and subsequent decay is rapid. Flagstone masonry will suffer a degree of distortion, but it is not uncommon to see walls bulging along the lines of internal flues if the chimneyheads have been left exposed. Chimneyheads, because of their exposure, and from the sulphates deposited internally on flue lines, can become very contorted.

Opportunities

Raising awareness

The Inventory has highlighted the very rich resource of historic buildings surviving in Caithness, a legacy which does not appear to have been given proper recognition in official circles. Opinions of the value of this legacy lay between two extremes: recognition of the value, but concern with the lack of resource to maintain it in perpetuity at one end of the spectrum, and, at the other, a view that it will be a financial burden, a barrier to progress, and an unpleasant reminder of a failed economy, the evidence of which is all too plain to see.

Local historical societies, charitable trusts and individuals have undertaken considerable work in raising awareness of the past, and nowhere is this better seen than in the Yarrows Archaeological Trail, or in the historical publications on Stroma and Lybster in which those who lived in these places contributed to the publication through oral history, supplying original archival material and historic photographs. Successful heritage centres, and museums exist in Dunbeath, Lybster and Wick. There are museums at Laidhay and at Mary Ann’s Cottage in West Dunnet. Underpinning all this has been the establishment of the North Highland Archive, housing a rich and invaluable resource of historical manuscripts relating to the study area. The value of these bodies, the work which they undertake, and the growth in interest in the historic environment, should be nurtured and promoted.

However it is undoubtedly the case that the architectural value of the buildings of Caithness as a whole has been misunderstood, and misrepresented. The Inventory, if properly and effectively disseminated, provides an opportunity to redress the balance: to engender a better understanding of the significance and merit of the resource; to highlight the degree to which it is at risk; to discuss the remedies that may be available; and underscore the consequences of doing nothing.

Project related economic regeneration

30 Funding to permit the regeneration and reuse of historic buildings can come from a variety of sources: developers may be interested in towns but less enthusiastic about remote rural areas; private owners will be limited to single, smaller properties such as small mills and cottages; the Townscape Heritage Initiative (THI) schemes promoted by the Heritage Lottery Fund are intended to assist regeneration in areas such as Pulteneytown, where investment is badly needed.

There are many deserving sites which will only be saved by benefiting from grants from public funding. To obtain the necessary level of grant, the project promoter will be expected to have charitable status and operate on a non-profit basis. Building Preservation Trusts (BPTs) were set up with this purpose in mind. A particularly successful BPT project has been the conversion of the mill at Forss into residential units by the Highland Buildings Preservation Trust. Successful THI schemes, and projects realised by BPTs, can make a real difference to regeneration of an area and set exemplary standards with regard to demonstrating good conservation practice.

Adaptive reuse

If the integrity of historic buildings is not to be destroyed in the process of conversion, it is important to ensure that proposed uses are compatible with the surviving fabric. New uses should never require buildings to be extended disproportionately, nor rebuilt to the extent that they are no longer recognisable.

The Inventory shows that the stock of redundant buildings suited to adaptive reuse is such that a range of compatible uses would be appropriate; there are, for instance, relatively few structures of a massive scale, but there are a number of sites that are large in themselves but composed of several ranges of buildings. The surviving structures of the pavement industry at Castlehill fall into this category. Even redundant churches are relatively small in scale, but the Bridge Street Church in Wick, and the Parliamentary Church at Berriedale, may pose particular problems of their own due to size in the case of the former, and historic importance in the case of the latter. The preservation of the aircraft hangars at Wick and some of the iconic buildings at Dounreay, whilst having historic significance, pose problems on quite a different scale.

Availability of traditional materials

It needs to be accepted that certain materials used in traditional construction will no longer be available locally will either have to be imported into the area, or acceptable substitutes found. Although it would be historically correct to specify clay mortars for binding the core of the external walls, there could be uncertainty over the supply of the material from the original sources and a weak lime mix might prove to be a suitable alternative. These technical issues merit further project-related research.

The supply of blue slates should not prove too problematic, even though supplies of second hand material for the use on the roofs of historic buildings are dwindling. New matching slate may be required in some cases from accredited sources that suit the colour, texture, a projected long life, and the coursing patterns of the original roof. Material removed from roofs of appropriate quality might be stockpiled for future use, but in a coordinated way.

If fresh indigenous material is to be used for restoring Caithness’s historic buildings, a market for stone slate in all its various colours and large flagstone slabs needs to be created. Even then, to make it attractive for the quarries to resume operation whilst keeping the price acceptable to the consumer some form of financial incentive may be needed in association with changes to the supply change. In the short term the problem is lessened by stockpiling salvaged material wherever possible

Skills training

In Caithness there is a dearth of craftsmen skilled in the maintenance and restoration of historic buildings. Advantage should be taken of training schemes established elsewhere: training programmes which are part of some THI schemes; conservation courses; courses run by the Scottish Lime Centre at Charlestown in Fife; the Scottish Traditional Skills Training Centre at Fyvie, Aberdeenshire, or by the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB).

Skills training applies equally to property owners and tradesmen and building professionals. A desirable goal would be for professionals to embrace the ethos of conservation and achieve accreditation in the subject, so that conservation skills would be available locally.

31 The case for a local centre of excellence

The task of saving the unique built heritage of Caithness, in ways that are truly sustainable, is beyond the capabilities and resources of any individuals or even single organisations. The evidence from elsewhere is that a dedicated unit situated within the county is required.

A Centre of Conservation Excellence would:

• maintain and develop the Inventory as a living historic resource and, in particular, act as a focus for identifying properties to be added to the Inventory; • engage with stakeholders and the principal agencies; • work with communities, local societies, individual property owners and conservation professionals; • engage those with experience in the conservation and adaptation of rural buildings and supporting research staff; • facilitate training in appropriate building and conservation skills; • provide advice and guidance on the choice and use of materials for conservation projects; • dispense advice on potential funding sources, and assist with applications.

The Glasgow West Preservation Trust, Solway Heritage and the Shetland Amenity Trust provide models worthy of being examined. While the Centre could be constituted as a building preservation trust (BPT) in its own right, focusing on projects to be undertaken in Caithness and in the North Highlands, that will not prevent it working with and supporting other trusts. For example The Highland Buildings Preservation Trust for long has had an interest in undertaking projects in Caithness. More recently, the Prince’s Regeneration Trust has been involved in setting up workshops with the local communities in Castletown and Lybster.

Some nationally based trusts could have a role in preserving Caithness’s built heritage: the Scottish Historic Buildings Trust, involved in the delivery of the Spa Pavilion project at Strathpeffer and the Knockando Woolmill project, Morayshire; the Scottish Redundant Churches Trust which has repaired and preserved St Peter’s Church, Orkney, and currently embarking on a similar project at the historic East Church, Cromarty; the Landmark Trust which has declared a renewed interest recently in undertaking projects in Scotland and in the far north.

Conclusions and Recommendations

Conclusions 1. The principal conclusion to be drawn from the Inventory is that the vernacular heritage in Caithness is unique, is a diminishing resource, and is currently at very considerable risk. 2. The impression conveyed to a visitor by the sheer number of derelict or decaying structures littered across the open landscape is one of an area in decline. 3. The merit of the vernacular heritage of Caithness has not always been fully recognised in the past, not least by its omission in heritage protection legislation. 4. A distinctive vernacular tradition has been crafted in Caithness through the use of flagstone, creating a strong sense of local identity. 5. Of the 1,350 or so sites recorded no less than 70 relate to the island of Stroma. 6. Some of building types found in Caithness are unique to the area, for example the distinctive places of worship erected for the Free Church in the 1840s and again for the United Free Church in the early twentieth century. 7. The example of Pulteneytown confirms that repair and adaptation of redundant buildings is a positive factor in promoting the regeneration of communities. 8. The rich legacy of farm buildings is unique to Caithness and as a resource on a par with the best examples in the rest of the UK.

Recommendations

The issues highlighted by the Inventory are far ranging and their resolution will require a partnership approach. The full report contains 50 detailed recommendations which cover: 32 1. Dissemination of the Inventory, Report and Recommendations; 2. Achieving agreement to the Recommendations; 3. Establishing a Programme to deliver the agreed recommendations; 4. Developing the infrastructure to support the Programme; 5. Funding; 6. Stakeholder Management Dissemination of the Inventory, Report and Recommendations

North Highland Initiative should develop and implement a strategy for promoting the Inventory and its Recommendations as widely as possible using different vehicles, as appropriate, to raise awareness of the richness of Caithness’s Built Heritage, its present precariousness and the value associated with its regeneration. Achieving Agreement to the Recommendations Following an adequate period of discussion, North Highland Initiative should seek a Consensus, involving the appropriate national, regional and local organisations and experts, on the recommendations, on the relative priorities for implementation and on the funding implications. Establishing a Programme to deliver the agreed Recommendations

North Highland Initiative should be responsible for:

1. defining a Programme for the delivery of the Consensus, establishing objectives, priorities, timescales and budgets; 2. appointing a Director responsible for the delivery of the Programme; 3. establishing a Centre for Conservation Excellence as the umbrella organisation for overseeing the Programme, monitoring progress, defining standards, maintaining records and liaising with other organisations. Developing the infrastructure to support the Project

A Centre for Conservation Excellence should include amongst its responsibilities:

1. the maintenance and extension of the Inventory together with associated records, statistics and photographs; 2. establishing a salvage yard for materials suitable for the repair of the historic building stock; 3. determining the necessary skills base required to support the Programme and facilitate its provision and recognition; 4. liaison with local and national government departments to manage potential conflict; 5. working with national and local bodies to source supplies of appropriate materials and to maintain an up to date knowledge base of their properties and use; 6. maintaining intelligence of the availability of grant programmes; 7. developing plans for extending the Inventory to other areas.

Funding

North Highland Initiative, advised by Centre staff, should seek appropriate working relationships with funding organisations to ensure the funding streams required to fulfil and sustain the Programme in the longer term.

Stakeholder management

North Highland Initiative should develop and implement a strategy for Stakeholder Management so as to promote widespread knowledge, enthusiasm and support for the Programme together with recognition of its value and an appreciation of its potential contribution to other initiatives such as the evolving Scottish Rural Development Programme, the Scotland's Historic Environment Audit (SHEA), and the Buildings at Risk Register.

July 2008 33 Glossary

The following technical terms have been used in the preparation of the Inventory report. The notes have been adapted for relevance to the vernacular heritage of Caithness.

Astragals Glazing bars, most often narrow and of moulded timber, subdividing a window sash

Battens Small rectangular length of timber used for fixing roofing tiles

Benlin stanes Stones, attached to the simmens or ropes at the wallheads of a thatched roof to hold the surface of the roof down in strong wind Blocked (quoins) Raised margins at the corner of a building, to give greater architectural emphasis, a decorative feature used throughout Pulteneytown from the late nineteenth century Brattishing Late 19th century decorative metal cresting, often appearing on roof ridges, porches or to the parapets of projecting bay windows Couples In the roofs of longhouses, pairs of naturally shaped timbers joined at the ridge to provide the basic structure of a thatched roof Crowsteps An early method by which gables were finished, consisting of squared stones laid at the head of the wall to follow the pitch of the roof, stepping upwards towards the apex Crucks Large curved timbers, naturally formed, in which the load of a thatched roof is transferred to the ground without imposing load directly onto the wallheads; crucks would be commonly set within a recessed pocket in the internal face of the wall Drydash As opposed to wet dash preferred for harling, a modern self-finished render in which the colour and texture of the wall is defined by the final coat of aggregate Drystane Constructed without the use of mortar

Gablets Small gables, often to porches, or to dormers at roof level

Girnal A granary, for the storage of grain

Harling A wall finish characteristic to Scotland, applied as a wet dash with a rippled surface to improve weather resistance; early lime-based harls would have been finished in limewash whereas the later cement harls were often left unfinished with a grey appearance Hipped roof Angled roof found at a gable where the gable has been retained at the general height of the wallheads rather than carried up to an apex Hip tile A length of clay or concrete to a rounded profile laid over the roof hips to prevent water penetration at the joint between opposing roof planes Horsegang A primitive engine, often used on farms to power machinery such as threshing machines, driven byhorses; otherwise known as a horse-mill Hydraulicity Refers to the strength of lime mortars, and in particular the strength gained from the level of carbonation of the mortar Keystone The stone at the head, or dead centre, of an arched opening

Lintols Short beams, of stone, iron, steel or timber spanning an opening in a masonry or brick wall

Longhouse A generic term to describe earlier forms dwellings, usually thatched, laid out on the principle of an additive linear form under one roof, in which it had been commonplace for animals to be housed in one end of the structure, for which humans and animals may share the same entry in the more primitive versions Lugged Refers to the extension of a raised band surrounding a window or door opening, either at cill or lintol level to provide a decorative treatment, in which the opening might appear to have 'ears' Mitred piends Close mitred junction where two planes of a roof meet, which avoids the use of hip tiles (see above) Pends Pedestrian closes between the buildings of a medieval or later burgh, known in some areas as wynds Pebble-dash As drydash, a modern render coating applied to masonry walls in which the top coat is of decorative pebbles or aggregate which provides both colour and texture Piended roof A hipped roof (see above)

Pozzolans Pozzolans were added to lime mortar to increase strength and decrease setting time, and were derived from volcanic ash, used by the civil engineers mainly in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

34 Quoins Corner stones in the construction of a masonry wall

Rybats Stones formed at the jambs of window and door openings in masonry walls, normally shaped and finished square Saddle and Large stones laid so that the upper stone covers the joint of the lower stones trough Sarking Close boarded finish applied to a roof structure for the fixing of roofing slates

Seamers Thin strips of stone applied as weatherproofing below flush joints; may occur at piends (see above) or on the flat planes of a roof finished in large flagstones Simmens Ropes Traditionally of heather, laid over a thatched roof to prevent the thatch from blowing away in strong wind Skews Flat stone at the head of a gable, to finish off the wallhead to a true angled profile matching the roof pitch, and to prevent water penetration Skewputt The stone built into the wall at the base of the skews, to prevent them from slipping off; may also appear at the base of crowsteps, in which case the skewputt will often have a decorative curved profile Snecks Small pieces of stone, or slate, used when laying masonry to regularise the joints and reduce the joint width so that the mortar can set; in some work the snecks can be applied decoratively in the face of the mortar Vernacular Unpretentious architecture of local and regional traditional building forms and types shaped by the use of indigenous materials Voussoirs Shaped stones forming an arched opening