Barracks, Bighouse is a Grade B listed building in the Highland local planning authority area, Scotland. First listed on 3 August 1977.

Barracks, Bighouse

WRENN ID
pitched-newel-storm
Grade
B
Local Planning Authority
Highland
Constituency
Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross MP: Jamie Stone (LD)
Country
Scotland
Date first listed
3 August 1977
OS grid reference
NC 890 647
Coordinates
58.55675, -3.9077
Source
Historic Environment Scotland listing

Also on this page: flood risk · radon risk · weather exposure · detailed attributes ↓

Description

Dated 1738, this is a small, two-story house with three bays, designed with projecting outer bays that create a U-shaped plan. It is constructed from harl-pointed rubble with ashlar margins. A corrugated iron porch obscures the central doorway, which sits within the re-entrant bay. A further entrance is located in the centre of the west bay, with a rear entrance flanked by small windows. The windows are narrow, with chamfered margins; those on the first floor are smaller than those on the ground floor. A square, off-centre first-floor window has decorative mouldings and a dated lintel. The windows have either four or twelve panes of glass. The roof is slate, with a piended shape and a stone ridge, and there are paired ridge stacks.

Inside, the house has been divided into two dwellings. Later 19th-century pine plank panelling lines the walls, and small fireplaces are present. A dated lintel, which may be reused, is inscribed “I L MACKAY BIGHOUSE 1738". The house itself is likely slightly later than the lintel’s date. It probably acquired the name "The Barracks" if it was used to house servants at some point.

Local climate

Barracks, Bighouse sits in one of the wettest parts of the UK, with an average of 1,210 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 92% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 90% of listed buildings.

It experiences an average of 18 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 83% of listed buildings. Of these, 14 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.

Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.

More on this building

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  • No EPC on record for this property
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  • Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
  • Flood risk assessment
  • Radon risk assessment
  • Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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