No 202. The Crofter's Barn Itself.

No 202. The Crofter’s Barn Itself.

There are two crofter’s barns still in good condition and easily visited by the public in Caithness, though there are the remains of many. Summer time will have to do as they are both shut for the winter. Laidhay in Dunbeath is one, Mary-Ann’s in Dunnet the other. Both are well built and in good condition.
The Laidhay Barn was built about 1840, or so I was told. It shows the old naturally bent crucks that held the roof beams, still in great shape. Held together in bits and pieces, spliced or pinned, they did a good job that lasted well. They started from the floor level, the beams built into the wall, then arched over to meet at the top. Each rafter had its own peculiar shape, but they did the job.
That style was common, and a crofter would many a time get some bog timbers out of the peat moss, dry them and build them into his barn wall. Mis-shapen they usually were.
That same construction also did for the old houses and other buildings. Any similar naturally bent timbers would do, they did not need to be bog birch. Rising from the ground up, they were not laid on the top of built stone wall as sawn timber rafters were.

Cross beams next, then odd bits and pieces crossing them lying side by side to hold the roof, which was often of grass or heather turf. Equally useful was being thatched (thaiked) with long heather or reeds. Straw was much too valuable for other purposes to be used on a roof and did not have long lasting properties.
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The “Thaik Loon” below the “Paddle of Kirk”, both in the low land below Kirk and a bit downstream to the east from Barrock Mains, was a rich source of thaik material. Well marked in an original Lyth Estate map of 1777, of which I have a beautiful copy. Lyth Estate then belonged to Alexander Sinclair of Barrock, grandson of the original George Sinclair of Barrock. Thaik was a particularly long rush growing in very wet conditions, practically a watery marsh, and well suited for thatching. These long reeds grew in my boyhood at Whitehall down at Old St Peter’s Kirk, really floating in a mat on top of water. Good nesting ground for water birds, we ventured onto it when we should not have, shoogly indeed!!! I had similar reeds floating in the old Marl Pit at Lower Dounreay, now filled in and covered with spoil.
Hard work indeed to cut and carry reeds from any Leans to where-ever the barn was but needs must. A natural Thaik Loon or Leans was treasured, though not too many were around.
On the old estates with a bit of money sawn timber was often provided free to the crofter.
He then had to quarry the stone and build the barn himself, or sometimes use land stones
tediously gathered. Simple enough to build, apart from hard work. These were sometimes
covered with thin flagstone shed covers of Caithness origin, thin enough not to bear too
heavy a weight on the roof. There is an empty building below the Main road at Murkle
showing the old system. And some barns were well and properly slated with Caithness
slates such as Mary-Ann’s. Once built no doubt the rent of the croft would then be
raised!!!
The Crofter’s Barn itself had a certain pattern. An earthern or clay threshing floor for the flail, soft enough not to break the grain or the flail, hard enough to offer resistance. The classic two doors opposite each other to give a through draft to winnow the chaff from the good grain, though these doors did not need to be opposite the threshing floor. Even in old vestigal croft ruins these doors are still visible. There is one existing in the Greenland Mains Links, a long left-over from an old steading called Hallanmake in General Roy’s Map of 1747/52.
That croft then stood on the edge of Loch Heilen, it is now 1,000 metres away from the Loch as much sand drifted in from Dunnet Beach since 1747 to block the former Loch Heilen outlet to the Burn of Mid Sands and divert the water to enter the sea at Ham.
The original barns could be quite low, and there are a few where the walls were later heightened and re-roofed to allow for better machinery. The one at Mary-Ann’s was well built with good stone slightly before the survey of the 1906 Ordnance Survey Map, good sawn timbers in the roof.

From the flail improvements appeared as the machine age progressed. Simple threshing machines appeared and fanners to clean the grain. Not much would be threshed in a day, it would be very much hand to mouth, threshing just a few sheaves with a simple hand mill for a cow or two.
We will come to the enormous progress made with threshing mills in due course, but the crofter in days bygone had little money for improvements in his barn.