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North Highland Initiative Cover Note to Caithness

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North Highland Initiative Cover Note to Caithness 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
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