Our community-focused project will consolidate or conserve, identify the visible and accessible archaeological features of Ceannabeinne township for promotion to the public and provide informative access and interpret the biggest well preserved pre clearance farm town in Sutherland with the visible remains of 10 buildings and their associated enclosures.
A census of the 16th June 1841 details ten families and their occupations living in fourteen houses and a school. We wish to make a car park and walkway with interpretation panels and recreate dramatically the story in a new and old documentary form using digital media.
Archaeologists from Glasgow University have been working on 3 specific sites and mapping the entire place recording various features. Initial results show that the site was intensely farmed using every available fertile area and the houses were in the most sheltered places out of the wind. The three sites being archeologically examined will be detailed on the interpretive panels along with the historical story on the trial being developed with artists impressions of the locality. The archaeology is exploring 3 long houses each with a different aspect. The first has been shown to have a fireplace in a gable end wall. This is significant in determining the period that the house was lived in as moving away from the central hearth was a significant social move. This house also shows signs of plaster on the walls and possible glass windows as fragments of glass have been found. The second archaeological site is exploring a drain proving to be from a byre at one end of another house where occupants kept cattle. Artefacts have been found in the drain and will be identified and dated and used to help further the explanation of the township. At the third archeologically site the dig appears to be uncovering a longhouse with a central hearth off set to the door giving a less modernised abode. There is still much work to be carried out but current resources have indicated that this area developed over a long period and housed families in different kinds of living accommodation all based on the traditional longhouse.