The Shieling, Scourie

The Shieling is an earlier 19th century traditional dwelling house and shop. According to the current occupier, it functioned as a local hardware shop by the 1830s. The building has an L-plan layout, with its main elevation facing southwest, comprised of seven irregular bays. The dwelling house occupies the left four bays, while the former shop occupies the right three bays. A single-storey wing was added to the southeast in the mid-to-later 19th century to expand the business into a General Store. Originally, this wing would have projected from the main house and shop, as evidenced by the single stack and shown on the 2nd edition Ordnance Survey Map; a passageway between the two was later filled in. Behind the house is a single-storey outshot, with a timber-lined interior containing original shop fixtures and fittings, used for storing provisions for the front shop. Timber-lined interiors remain in both the house and shop, making this a significant surviving example of a 19th century house and local store that would have served a self-sufficient crofting community. The house and shop are situated within their original setting, alongside an associated stone outbuilding and garden enclosed by a stone dyke wall located across the road to the southwest. The outbuilding is divided into three sections, used for storing coal and peat and accommodating a donkey.

The crowstepped gables of The Shieling do not have the typical right-angled skew putts characteristic of buildings erected by the Sutherland Estate. It is believed that Donald MacDonald, who moved from Rogart in the 1820s to establish a small croft and business in Scourie, constructed the building, accounting for this stylistic difference. The shop was once a central part of village life, serving the wider community within a 30-mile radius. The exterior is white-washed rubble with ashlar margins, featuring timber sash and case windows with multi-paned glass. The roof is slate with ashlar stacks, while the single-storey former shop has a corrugated iron roof.