In 1999 I began to go walking in the glens and mountains of Moidart.
To begin with I thought that they were very impressive and lonely
and thought that not many people had possibly seen these remote bits
of Moidart before. However, particularly in autumn and winter when
bracken does not hide things, I began to notice that there were a
lot of abandoned buildings in the glens and corries.
As time went on I became more and more curious about how the hills
and glens had once been widely used and this is an account of the
observations that I made. To begin with I didn't have GPS equipment
and my earlier data are all estimates about where I found the buildings.
My camera then was not digital either and so I didn't take too many
photographs at that time. Having visited some of the sites three or
four times I began to notice that my previous observations had been
far from complete and there are other parts of Moidart, particularly
towards Glenfinnan, where I have not explored.
So this account of old buildings and shielings must be far from complete.
It does not have much here about Castle Tioram, High Mingarry, Polnish,
Port a'Bhata and the Recessed Platforms of the north shore of Loch
Moidart. Excellent information about these can be seen on www.moidart.org.uk
in the Archaeology section. It is work carried out by Sandra Evans
and The History Group.
Gordon Barr
2017.
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