Salen Cottage, Sailean, Lismore

Salen Cottage, Sailean, Lismore

Salen Cottage is a single-storey former lime worker's cottage dating to around the mid-19th century. It forms part of An Sailean lime works on the west coast of Lismore and is the most complete example of former workers' housing on the industrial site and the last to remain roofed.

The cottage has a three-bay principal elevation facing southeast. The walls are constructed in local rubble with lime mortar bonding, with roughly dressed quoins, windows and door margins visible through remnants of a harled and painted finish. The main elevation features a near-central doorway with a stone threshold step and a double-leaf timber door, with single window openings on either side. A further single window, boarded with wood, appears on the southwest gable near the front corner.

The pitched roof is covered with graded stone slates and has gable end chimneystacks with clay pots, plain stone capping and thin stone or slate drip-checks below. The windows to the principal elevation are timber sash frames with four panes. The interior layout, partly visible in 2023, consists of a central inner-porch or hallway with one room to each side. The pitched ceiling and lack of rooflights indicate there is no attic floor or rooms. The northeast gable wall contains a cast iron stove set in a fireplace with a plain timber fire surround and mantel.

The cottage is located within An Sailean lime works, where two other ruinous former workers' cottages also survive—one immediately southwest (originally built as an adjoining pair of farmstead cottages) and one on the quay. The former manager's house and office, in a ruinous state, also remains near the quay.

Limestone extraction and lime burning on Lismore may date back beyond the 19th century. The Statistical Account of 1791 records that 'burning of lime for sale has been begun… in Lismore and Appin', with the first documented kiln dated to 1804 and the last in production in the 1930s. An Sailean was located within the Baleveolan Estate. Estate letters from the 1840s indicate that lime supply from Dugald McCorquodale, the estate lime burner, was erratic, suggesting only small-scale or ad-hoc production at that time. By the 1850s, John McIntyre was manager of the lime works and organised finance for the quay at An Sailean to serve two new kilns, indicating the establishment of An Sailean as an industrial-scale site around 1850. McIntyre also operated independently as a coal merchant, with his yard and store at the works serving the entire island with fuel. Records from the Napier Commission of 1883 state that 12 to 16 quarrymen and lime burners were employed at An Sailean.

An Sailean was the last active lime works on Lismore, operating into the 1930s. An attempt to restart production during the Second World War is documented in a Scotsman article from 18 November 1942, which stated 'The limestone industry on the island of Lismore may be restarted as a wartime measure to provide lime for agriculture. Many years ago, the lime kilns were in operation on this island but the trade petered out owing largely to labour difficulties'. The works never reopened, though Salen Cottage likely remained occupied further into the 20th century.