Lone Shieling

[johnw]

Got seriously off on a tangent yesterday and wound up looking into Hebridean shielings.  There are some magnificent ones.  Here's one in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park here in Nova Scotia.  I haven't seen it since I was a child.  A wonderous setting in a 350 year old sugar maple forest and modelled after one on the Isle of Skye.

I imagine a scree in the side yard with troughs!  A stove.


johnw - weather very Hebridean,  +9c fog and heavy mist.

[Matt T]

That's a beautiful construction, John. Any idea where on Skye one might find the one  it's modelled on (ruins of, more likely)?

The usage of the word shieling ('airigh' in Gaelic) has changed over time. It used to refer to the summer pasture, but is typically now used for the huts built on them and used for shelter.

[johnw]

It is quite beautiful Matt; the setting not very authentic but then I suppose if on the barren peaks of the highlands it would be inaccesible. 

This is all I can find so far.

https://books.google.ca/books?id=eYyWkA3izIAC&pg=PA435&lpg=PA435&dq=Lone+Shieling+Isle+of+Skye&source=bl&ots=3afj3xlaN9&sig=agOIWxvW4ERFHjiojnueAvIe_Dw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=a30yVf_UH-ySsQTA_oCADg&ved=0CDEQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=Lone%20Shieling%20Isle%20of%20Skye&f=false

I have friends who worked in the Provincial Museum system, I'll enquire.  Also sent an email to Parks Canada

john

[David Nicholson]

Apart from the use of stone instead of wood they haven't moved on too much from Anglo-Saxon times.

http://www.primaryhomeworkhelp.co.uk/saxons/houses.htm

[Matt T]

It is quite beautiful Matt; the setting not very authentic but then I suppose if on the barren peaks of the highlands it would be inaccesible. 

This is all I can find so far.

https://books.google.ca/books?id=eYyWkA3izIAC&pg=PA435&lpg=PA435&dq=Lone+Shieling+Isle+of+Skye&source=bl&ots=3afj3xlaN9&sig=agOIWxvW4ERFHjiojnueAvIe_Dw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=a30yVf_UH-ySsQTA_oCADg&ved=0CDEQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=Lone%20Shieling%20Isle%20of%20Skye&f=false

I have friends who worked in the Provincial Museum system, I'll enquire.  Also sent an email to Parks Canada

john

Thanks, John. Most of these buildings are very similar in design, purely functional really and limited by the materials available, namely rock and heather in plentiful supply! They are beautiful in their simplicity, their abundant ruins scattered all across the landscape. If your friends can help with any info at all I'd be happy to go to the building in Skye, or any remains there may be and take a photograph to post here.

[johnw]

That would be super Matt.  On my mother's side half originally came from Skye and the others from Kinlochmoidart.   Plenty of "experimental" shenanigans in those shielings I hear.

johnw

[Hoy]

You still find similar ones in Norway, usually up in the mountains where they used stone. In the woods the old timber "shielings" have disappeared.



From this site:  http://ordovergrind1.blogspot.no/2012_09_26_archive.html

or this:



http://invalid.ed.ntnu.no/~dagmatti/div/fjelltur_99_1.php



And more:

https://www.google.no/search?q=steinhytte+fjellet&client=firefox-a&hs=Mjm&rls=org.mozilla:nb-NO:official&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=nGkzVZm6HcqqsAH_wYGYBQ&ved=0CB0QsAQ&biw=1280&bih=666

[Hoy]

That's a beautiful construction, John. Any idea where on Skye one might find the one  it's modelled on (ruins of, more likely)?

The usage of the word shieling ('airigh' in Gaelic) has changed over time. It used to refer to the summer pasture, but is typically now used for the huts built on them and used for shelter.

Matt,

I believe the word 'shieling' has the same root as Norw. 'skjul' meaning shelter.

[johnw]

Trond - Some very beautiful shielings at those links.

I saw one photo of Norway there:

#1

and it so reminds me of coastal Nova Scotia:

2 & 3!

The three of us seem toi be living in similar settings.

johnw

[johnw]

Seems the Norwegians were very comfortable in northwesternmost Newfoundland at L'Anse aux Meadows as well.   Must have come to collect dwarf willows!

And built deluxe shielings.....?

http://humanandnatural.com/img-l'anse-aux-meadows-newfoundland-2798.htm


http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/lanse-aux-meadows/

[Hoy]

John, if we go some million years back the coasts of Norway and Nova Scotia were very close! (and with Scotland in between )


These houses have long history - here is one built as a copy of a 3000 year bronze age house near Stavanger:



http://forskning.no/landbruk-arkeologi-historie/2009/12/hullene-som-endret-norsk-historie

It is rather big and with clay plastered walls.

[johnw]

Trond  - I thought Nova Scotia was attached to Morocco.  Your suggestion sounds cozier.

john

[Hoy]

John, you are right of course! I was thinking of Greenland - (I know the difference)

It was all this talk about shieling which confused me


Norse building in Austerbygd, Greenland.



http://www.veroldin.com/groenland.157552.no.html

[Matt T]

On the way over to the Highland show in Nairn at the weekend we stopped off to give the dogs a good long walk at Abriachan. Instead of our usual stop (park at the nursery, spend some money at the Davidson's nursery then a walk on the wooded slopes) we took the steep road up the hill to walk through the forest and hill top moorland, which is community owned and managed by the Abriachan Forest Trust. This gave me the opportunity to capture a couple of snaps of the reconstructed shieling.

[ian mcdonald]

I think there is a reconstruction of Flora MacDonalds house at the Northern end of Skye.