Salachill Township Area. Perthshire

Today, after two weeks of torrential rain, I was able to resume my activities and headed out to the township of Salachill to continue my recording of villages and townships in the Dunkeld / Perthshire area. This is proving to be a very rich area for townships and discoveries

Salachill is a site that I have wanted to visit for a while and I was not disappoined. The only disappointment was the new wind farm that they are building across the area, so careful positioning of photographs was required!

The township is situated at NN954 427 and can be accessed along good paths from Ballinloan Bridge. Be carefull though, the are is very boggy and after all the rain, be prepared to wear suitable boots and clothing to achieve your aim.

Crown Copyright.

Crown Copyright

Salachill is an interesting site to visit. The remains of this township are situated on a hillside above the NE bank of the Ballinloan Burn,around 1.5 miles from Ballinloan Bridge. There are around twenty-three buildings, many of them are grouped into farmsteads, linked by trackways and set within stone-walled fields scattered with field-clearance heaps. The 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Perthshire 1867, sheet lxi) depicts almost all of these buildings (20 unroofed buildings).

Within the main area of the township, within the lower village are the remains of four farmsteads with many of them set into the hillside, or terraced up on their downhill side. These each comprise of five or six buildings loosely clustered around an irregularly-shaped yard. Two of these are located on a terrace immediately above the Ballinloan Burn, while the other two are situated slightly higher on the hillside. two of the buildings don't fit neatly into this arrangement and they stand in isolation at the W edge of the site.

The overall construction of the buildings on the site are very similar being roughly rectangular with square corners and in most cases gable-ended. they have faced-rubble walls mostly with cruck slots visible in one or two of them.

The size of the buildings can be divided into two distinct groups. In the first group there are five buildings measuring internally between 20.3m and 29.5m in length and between 3.8m and 4.5m in breadth. There is one of these long buildings in each farmstead, always on the N side of the yard.  The fifth is one of the two isolated buildings at the W edge of the site. They are all divided into two or more compartments and most of the compartments have separate entrances, which in all cases are in the South side of the wall, opening onto the yard. In two of the buildings, fireplaces can still be clearly seen in the west gable.

The other eighteen buildings are clustered close to the larger buildings, and help to define, the limits of each steading's yard. Several of the larger examples are divided into two compartments, and there is evidence of an upper floor in at least two cases.  Occasionally features survive which suggest a particular function: a fireplace in one building signifyes use for domestic occupation, and the opposed entrances in four buildings (one in each farmstead) points to their use as barns.