Monument record 532 - TIGH TALAMHANTA, ALLASDALE, BARRA

NF60SE 2 6767 0220.

(NF 6766 0225) Tigh Talamhanta (NR)
OS 6"map, Inverness-shire, 2nd ed., (1904)

Tigh Talamhanta (The House under the Ground), was excavated by Scott in 1950-1 and by Young in 1953.
The site comprises an aisled farmhouse, souterrain, kilnhouse and steading, in a partially walled enclosure of 1 1/2 acres. The wall ends in a marshy area near the barn, but intermittent mounds in the marsh are probably the remains of a continuous earthen bank completing the enclosure.
A long period of occupation is attested by the pottery commencing in the late 1st century, but it is not possible to give a terminal date. The steading was overlaid by an 18th century structure.
The finds are in the NMAS: one flint implement may have been a reworked Mesolithic artifact.
A Young 1955; Proc Soc Antiq Scot 1961.

NF 6767 0220. As described and illustrated by A Young (1955) and PSAS (1961). The remains are in a rather poor state of preservation.
Visited by OS (W D J) 26May 1965.

C2 (NF677022) The wheelhouse, Tigh Talamhanta, excavated and published by Young (1952).

Brannigan and Foster 2000, 34

A Young, 1952-3, Proc Soc Antiq Scot, 80-105 plans and illusts. (Bibliographic reference). SWE8433.

PSAS, 1958-9, Proc Soc Antiq Scot, 120 (Bibliographic reference). SWE5217.

D V Clarke, 1971b, Scot Archaeol Forum, 50, No. 6 (Bibliographic reference). SWE1066.

M Guido, 1978, The Glass Beads of the Prehistoric and Roman Periods in Britain and Ireland, 181 (Bibliographic reference). SWE2959.

J N G and A M Ritchie and Lane, 1978-80, Proc Soc Antiq Scot, 219-20 (Bibliographic reference). SWE6208.

N and P Fojut and Love, 1980a, Discovery and Excavation, Scotland, 42 (Bibliographic reference). SWE12889.

Keith Branigan & Patrick Foster, 2000, From Barra to Berneray: Archaeological Survey and Excavation in the Southern Isles ... (Bibliographic reference). SWE41033.