The Lappan, farmhouse

The Lappan is a traditional farm complex predominantly dating from around the mid-19th century but containing some earlier fabric. The buildings are single-storey with rectangular plan-forms. They comprise a farmhouse with a detached steading range and outbuilding to the rear (northwest) that forms a U-plan courtyard. The roofs are pitched, and the walls are drystone rubble with some lime harl and pointing. The site contains various other ancillary features, including a kailyard, mill pond and lade. The complex has been vacant since the 1980s. It is located on the east coast of Caithness, on high farmland overlooking the Moray Firth, and is set back from the A9 road, approximately one mile north of the village of Dunbeath.

The Farmhouse

The farmhouse dates to around the mid to late 19th century. It is five-bays, with walls of coursed and squared rubble. The roof has Caithness stone slates in diminishing courses with coped skews. There are chimneystacks at each gable and one to the ridge. The windows are mostly 12-pane timber sash and case.

The interior was seen in 2022. The layout remains largely unaltered and comprises four linear rooms (kitchen, parlour, and two bedrooms), with two entrance lobbies and a central attic, accessed via a ladder. The kitchen has a solid dividing wall, the remaining walls are stud partitions. The internal decorative treatment largely dates from the late 19th to mid-20th century and retains a large number of traditional features, furniture and personal items. The walls are largely limewashed, except for the parlour which is timber-panelled, with remnants of wallpaper to some areas, including some historic newspapers. The kitchen ceiling is open to the rafters with remnants of a hanging canvas which may have formed a false ceiling. There is a range stove set into the west wall, flanked by storage niches, and a freestanding timber box-bed forms an entrance lobby to the kitchen, with one of the two surviving dressers. There are some timber fireplace surrounds with decorative iron inserts to the other rooms.

The Steading Range

The steading range to the rear (northwest) comprises three outbuildings, built at different stages. The byre at the south end has a single door opening and the roof is covered with corrugated metal sheeting (1980s). The central section (stable) pre-dates the other buildings on site. It is three-bays with a roof of Caithness flagstones and a narrower footprint, which steps in at the rear. The threshing barn and granary at the north end dates to the early 20th century and has a corrugated iron roof, with a single door and window opening, and a high hayloft door at the east gable (suggesting there was originally a partial second floor for storing grain). There is a large iron water wheel on the north elevation, inscribed with 'B.B. CLYNE MILLWRIGHT WICK', dating from the late 19th or early 20th century.

Internally, each comprises a single room, connected by internal doorways, one of which has 'D.C.S Sinclair' and an illegible date carved into the lintel. The walls are largely exposed rubble or limewash and the roof structures, which appear to be 20th-century replacements, are exposed. There are moulded stone fireplaces in the stable and byre (all blocked). The byre has a cobbled floor with a drainage channel and four stalls constructed from upright Caithness slabs and stone feeding troughs. The stable has timber poles and horizontal dividers for up to five horses, with a timber and slate trough along the north wall. The granary contains a threshing machine and openings in the masonry where the water wheel would have connected.

Other Outbuildings

There are two other detached outbuildings, both of which are roofless but complete to wallhead. The store and former dairy, between the house and the steading range, has a single opening on the southwest elevation. There are some aumbries (storage niches) set into the inner walls and possible cruck insets. The tailor's workshop at the far southwest boundary of the site has a window opening and a large entrance to the main elevation, with remnants of a chimneystack to the west gable. Internally there is a fireplace at the southwest end and a storage niche in the northwest wall. Remnants of another room or outbuilding adjoins the northeast gable.

Ancillary Features

The raised mill lade to the rear of the threshing barn is constructed from stone and connects to the mill pond to the northeast of the site, which survives in a partially ruinous and overgrown condition. There is a small kailyard (walled garden) adjoining the front elevation of the farmhouse and remnants of a narrow, closs (cobbled passageway) between the steading range and the former dairy and store. There are a number of smaller ancillary structures, adjoining the farm buildings, all of which are ruinous.

Historical Development

Vernacular buildings of this type are difficult to date accurately because their form and construction tended to change little over long periods of time, and there are less likely to be historic records about these modest buildings.

There appears to have been a small settlement or communal farm on the site from at least the mid-18th century. Lappan is shown as a settlement on Roy's map of 1747-1755, and as a placename in Dorret's map of 1750 and Thomson's map of 1822 (spelled Lapan).

The Lappan is first shown in detail on the First Edition Ordnance Survey map (surveyed 1871, published 1873), which shows the restructuring of land use and the dissection of communal farms into separate crofts and farms, brought about by the Improvement period. The Improvement period was a time of radical change in farming practices that became widespread across Scotland from the late 18th to early 19th centuries, and saw the introduction of new farming technologies, land enclosure and the construction of many farmhouses and agricultural buildings. The Lappan is shown largely in its present form as a U-plan arrangement, with additional outbuildings to the west. The footprint of the buildings has remained relatively unaltered since this time, except for the later addition of the tailor's workshop and threshing barn.

The farmhouse appears to have been built around the mid-19th century in a single phase. It is unclear if it was originally thatched but evidence would suggest not (no thackstanes on the chimneys and little difference in depth between the slate roof and the skew). The range to the rear is multi-phased – the stables, and possibly the byre, pre-date the farmhouse and were in domestic use. This is evidenced by the fireplaces and the two windows to the front and a blocked window to the rear of the stable which has a wooden lintel. The stonework also indicates that the walls and roofs of this range were raised and partially rebuilt (to allow horses to enter), and the chimneys removed. The range was likely adapted when the present farmhouse was built around the mid-19th century, potentially when the landowner was carrying out improvements to the land. The ruinous outbuilding between the rear range and the cottage is thought to have been a dairy and the remnants of possible cruck inserts indicate that it was once thatched.

The Ordnance Survey map of 1905 (published 1906) shows that a porch was added to the front of the farmhouse around the late 19th century (since removed) and an enclosed garden (kailyard) added. The tailor's workshop had also been built by this time. This is supported by a photograph dating from around 1900-1905, which shows the cottage with a pitched roof porch, and the stable to the rear appears to have a thatched roof with a chimneystack at the northeast gable. The granary and threshing barn was built in the earlier 20th century and is shown on the Ordnance Survey map of 1969 (published 1970). By this date the outbuilding between the two ranges is ruinous and the tailor's workshop is shown as partially ruinous.

The Lappan has been owned by the Sinclair family since the middle of the 19th century and was at times occupied by up to 12 family members. It was part of the Latheronwheel estate, owned by the Dunbars, and comprised 20 acres at the time of the 1851 census. The farm grew and prospered during the 19th century and comprised 60 acres by 1901 (Hiddleston 2008, in Simpson and Brown, 2018).

The Lappan has been unoccupied since the 1980s.