Auchindrain Township Inveraray. Recording of the Architectural and Constructional Detail of the Standing Buildings

In April 1999 Lancaster University Archaeological Unit (LUAU) were commissioned by
Historic Scotland to undertake a fabric survey of the Auchindrain Township, near Inveraray,
Argyll (NGR NN 030 031). The survey was undertaken in two phases to record the
architectural and constructional detail of the standing buildings. In the first phase, the
survey examined buildings A, B, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U and W, whilst the second phase
examined buildings D, E, F, G, H, J, K and X. The results of both phases of survey are
presented in this report.
The township was a multiple tenancy farm, and was one of six such townships in a six mile
strip of land between Auchindrain and Inveraray. The earliest documented reference to
Auchindrain is from 1534. In 1693 it was assessed as having four tenants and by 1779 there
were up to six tenants and a total population of thirty-eight (RCAHMS 1992, 464). The
township went into a decline in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The last
tenant left in 1963, and the township was granted by the Argyll Estate, by a Declaration of
Trust in 1964, to a newly founded Auchindrain Museum Trust, as one of the best surviving
examples of a Highland 'clachan'.