Low mono-pitched sheds built almost entirely from quarry slate record how industrial waste, fishing and household income met on the edge of Loch Leven.
Quick facts
- Date
- Before 1870
- Architect / designer
- Slate workers and local builders not individually recorded
- Type
- Groups of dry-built slate shore stores and boat houses
- Designation
- Listed building, Category C (LB48146)
- OS grid reference
- NN 07462 58392
Architecture and continuing use
Three groups of lean-to structures use thick battered walls of blue-grey slate waste laid without mortar. Large slate slabs form shallow roofs over rough timber or sheet-metal doors. The 1870 survey recorded twenty-three units, while later inspection found gaps, roofless sections and nine surviving roofs. Their compact runs are shaped by the made shoreline as much as by conventional building plots.
Its story
Ballachulish quarrying generated immense quantities of broken slate as well as roofing material. Waste was placed along the shore to form banks and small harbours. Before 1870 workers built this extensive group to shelter boats used for fishing and to supplement quarry wages. Twentieth-century decline and exposure reduced the group, but the remaining structures continue to express the industry’s effect beyond the quarry face.
Why it is included
They are rare vernacular industrial buildings made from the by-product of the work that supported their users, rather than from formally dressed construction stone.
What to notice
- Battered walls assembled from thin slate pieces.
- Large overlapping slabs forming mono-pitched roofs.
- How the structures grow directly from the quarry-waste shore.
Reading the surroundings
Use recognised public routes and stay clear of unstable masonry, private cottages, working stores and the tidal edge. Do not open doors, enter roofless units or infer access from their mapped position.
Timeline
- Circa 1760 Large-scale slate working began to reshape the Ballachulish shore.
- 1870 Ordnance Surveyors recorded twenty-three boat houses at Cnap an Tairbh.
- 2001 Inspection found a reduced group with surviving roofs and ruinous gaps.
What we know — and what remains uncertain
The listing described poor condition in 2001; this record does not claim that every roof, door or use survives unchanged. Boundaries between private and accessible shore ground should be checked on site.
Sources & further reading
- Historic Environment Scotland: Cnap an Tairbh Slate Workers’ Boat Houses, LB48146 — Current designation status, statutory identity, official mapped point, date, fabric and significance.
- Ballachulish Community Council: The Quarry — Community evidence for quarry history, waste-slate shore formation, transport structures and continuing boat-shed use.
- Trove: Cnap an Tairbh boat houses — National heritage inventory entry for designation identity, mapped position, related records and available archive material.
- Highland Historic Environment Record: Ballachulish slate quarries — Local historic-environment synthesis for the East and West Laroch workings, harbours and inclined plane.
Location
OS grid reference NN 07462 58392 · Location confidence: High for the current HES designation point; public text separately qualifies access, component identity and any mapped-area or location uncertainty. · Select the marker to open its satellite view in Google Maps. On desktop, drag Pegman (the yellow figure) onto a blue road. On mobile, turn on the Street View layer and tap a blue road. Other photo markers may be user-contributed.
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