Ness, Tankerness

This is a mid-19th century group of farm buildings located near Ness, in Tankerness. The complex includes a cottage, associated farm buildings in a L-shaped arrangement, a bothy, a threshing barn, a wind-powered water pump, and a barn.

The cottage is a single-story, three-bay rectangular building with a square entrance porch and a rear lean-to addition. Its south-facing front elevation features a window in the porch’s central bay, a boarded door on the right return, and a window on the left return, with further windows in each of the bays. The rear north elevation is blank, with a lean-to addition on the left. An offset window sits to the left of the east side elevation, with a gablehead stack above, and a boarded door in the lean-to bay to the right. The west side elevation has an offset window to the right and another gablehead stack above. The windows are timber sash and case, with a fixed timber-framed window in the porch. The cottage has a corrugated-iron roof, a stone ridge, coped skews, and harled, coped gablehead stacks on the east and west sides. Rainwater goods are made of cast iron. The interior was not inspected in 1998.

The associated farm buildings are a complex of rectangular barns and byres arranged in an L-shape to the northeast of the cottage. These buildings largely have corrugated-iron roofs, with some sections featuring graded stone tile roofs and coped skews. They include boarded doors, some of which are sliding. The byre, forming the north range, has timber rafters and tie beams, concrete stall divisions along the east wall, and a central slurry channel. The remainder of the farm buildings were not fully inspected in 1998.

The bothy is a single-story building with a west-facing principal elevation which has a corrugated-iron, lean-to entrance porch in the central bay, a boarded door on the left return, and a window in each flanking bay. A window is located in the central bay of the rear east elevation, and a lean-to addition and a boarded door occupy the left return. The north and south side elevations are blank and gabled, with gablehead stacks. The bothy has fixed, four-pane timber-framed windows, a graded stone tiled roof, a stone ridge, and a flagstone roof on the rear addition. The interior was not inspected in 1998.

The threshing barn, oriented on a north-south axis, has an entrance door centered on its east elevation, a part-boarded window in the gable of its north end, and a window in the gable of its south end. The barn has fixed timber-framed windows and a graded stone tiled roof with a stone ridge. The interior is divided to create a grain store at the south end, and previously housed an engine-powered timber threshing machine along the west wall. Adjacent to the west side of the threshing barn stands a wind-powered water pump, featuring a steel-framed tripod supporting steel sails arranged in a circle, a wind-direction paddle at the centre, and a rectangular water tank raised on a concrete support to the north. A barn to the south of the threshing barn has a centered, two-leaf boarded door and a corrugated-iron roof overall.