Shieling

{{Short description|Dwelling on a pasture high in the hills}} {{Distinguish|Shilling}} {{Good article}} {{Use British English|date=October 2022}} {{Use dmy dates|date=October 2022}} [[File:Ruined sheiling - geograph.org.uk - 1094461.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|Ruined shieling south of Oban]]

A '''shieling'''{{efn|Also spelt ''sheiling'',<ref>{{cite web |title=sheiling |url=http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/sheiling |publisher=Collins Dictionary |access-date=3 April 2016}}</ref> ''shealing'', ''sheelin'', and ''sheeling''.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.encyclo.co.uk/webster/S/84 |title=Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary: Sheeling |publisher=Encyclo.co.uk |year=1913 |access-date=26 March 2013 |archive-date=31 December 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111231085321/http://www.encyclo.co.uk/webster/S/84 |url-status=live }}</ref>}} ({{langx|gd|àirigh}})<ref>Roger Hutchinson (2010), ''Father Allan: The Life and Legacy of a Hebridean Priest'', Birlinn Limited. Page 112.</ref> is a hut on a seasonal cattle pasture high in the hills, once common in upland or rural places in Scotland. Oval, circular or rectangular on plan, they were often constructed of dry stone or turf, with a small doorway and without any window openings. More loosely, the term may denote a seasonal mountain pasture for the grazing of cattle in summer. Seasonal pasturage implies transhumance between the shieling and a valley settlement in winter. Many Scottish songs have been written about life in shielings, often concerning courtship and love. The ruins of shielings are a relatively common feature in upland Scotland, particularly the Highlands and many are depicted on Ordnance Survey maps.

== Etymology ==

A "shieling" is a summer dwelling on a seasonal pasture high in the hills.<ref name=Cooper>{{harvnb|Cooper|1983|pp=124–125}}</ref> The first recorded use of the term is from 1568.<ref>{{Cite Merriam-Webster|shieling|access-date=5 May 2013}}</ref> The word "shieling" comes from "shiel", from the forms ''schele'' or ''shale'' in the Northern dialect of Middle English, likely related to Old Frisian ''skul'' meaning "hiding place" and to Old Norse ''skjol'' meaning "shelter" and ''skali'' meaning "hut".<ref name=Webster>{{cite encyclopedia |title=shiel |encyclopedia=Webster's Third New International Dictionary |year=1986 |volume=3 |edition=3 |pages=2094}}</ref>

== Seasonal dwelling ==

=== Construction ===

thumb|upright=1.6|left|Plans of three different shielings, of increasing complexity. Shielings were mostly rectangular although often with rounded corners. Some had a single room, others two or three. There were few or no windows in the walls of turf or stone.<ref name="HE"/>

A shieling, whether an isolated dwelling or in a group, is a hut or small dwelling, usually in an upland area.<ref name="HE"/> Shielings were often constructed of locally available dry stone, or turf.<ref name="HE"/> They are mostly rectangular buildings between {{convert|5.7|–|14|m|ft}} long and {{convert|3|–|8.3|m|ft}} wide, although they may have rounded corners or be roughly oval. The rectangular buildings usually had gabled roofs covered in local materials such as turf, heather, or rushes, supported on timbers. The doorway was usually in the middle of one of the long sides of the building, often on the south side; it was often just a gap in the wall, although some shielings had door jambs and lintels made of larger blocks of stone. The smaller shielings consisted of a single room; most were divided into two or three rooms. There were few or no windows.<ref name="HE"/> Some sources consider shielings to differ from farmsteads in lacking an enclosure,<ref name="Ramm McDowall Mercer 1970">{{cite book |last1=Ramm |first1=H.G. |last2=McDowall |first2=R.W. |last3=Mercer |first3=Eric |author4=Royal Commission on Historical Monuments |title=Shielings and Bastles |publisher=H.M.S.O. |location=London |date=1970 |pages=9–43 |isbn=978-0-11-700468-9 |oclc=540235}}</ref> although they may be surrounded by a bank and ditch, or by a dry stone wall.<ref name="HE"/>

[[File:Shielings on Jura.JPG|thumb|upright=1.1|18th-century shielings on the isle of Jura, from Thomas Pennant's 1776 ''Voyage to the Hebrides'']]

The Welsh traveller and naturalist Thomas Pennant wrote the first description of Scottish shielings:<ref name="HE"/>

{{blockquote|I landed on a bank covered with sheelins, the temporary habitations of some peasants who tend the herds of milch cows. These formed a grotesque group; some were oblong, some conic, and so low that the entrance is forbidden without creeping through the opening, which has no other door than a faggot of birch twigs placed there occasionally; they are constructed of branches of trees covered with sods; the furniture a bed of heather; placed on a bank of sod, two blankets and a rug; some dairy vessels; and above, certain pendent shelves made of basket‑work, to hold the cheese, the product of the summer. In one of the little conic huts I spied a little infant asleep.|Thomas Pennant, ''Voyage to the Hebrides'', 1776<ref name=HE/>}}

=== Usage ===

[[File:The Sheiling - geograph.org.uk - 837966.jpg|thumb|A ruined shieling close to the Loch Langavat path, Isle of Lewis]]

The shieling system was widespread across Europe, including upland Britain and Iceland. It survives into the 21st century in Norway, Northern Sweden and the higher areas of central Europe.<ref name="Cheape 1996">{{cite journal |last=Cheape |first=Hugh |title=Shielings in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland: Prehistory to the Present |journal=Folk Life |volume=35 |issue=1 |year=1996 |doi=10.1179/043087796798254498 |pages=7–24}}</ref> Farmers and their families lived in shielings during the summer to enable their livestock to graze common land. Shielings were therefore associated with the transhumance system of agriculture. They were often beside streams, which were used as pathways into the hills, or at the far end of the upland grazing land from the migrants' winter dwellings. The mountain huts generally fell out of use by the end of the 17th century, although in remote areas, such as the Isle of Lewis in the Hebrides, this system continued into the 18th century or even later.<ref name=HE/><ref name="Britnell 2004">{{cite book |last=Britnell |first=R. H. |title=Britain and Ireland 1050–1530 : economy and society |publisher=Oxford University Press |publication-place=Oxford |date=2004 |isbn=0-19-873145-0 |oclc=56436869 |page=268}}</ref> Derek Cooper, in his 1983 book on Skye, writes that the buildings on the moors were repaired each summer when the people arrived with their cattle; they made butter and cheese, and {{lang|gd|gruthim}}, salted buttered curds.

[[File:Ruins of a Shieling at Catlodge.jpg|thumb|The scant ruins of a summer shieling at Catlodge, near Laggan, marked by a green area around the building where the land had been cleared, which contrasts with the heather moorland]]

Ruins of shielings are abundant in high or marginal land in Scotland and Northern England,<ref name="Cheape 1996"/><ref name="ScARF">{{cite web |title=Case Study: Transhumance and Shielings |url=https://scarf.scot/national/scarf-modern-panel-report/modern-case-studies/case-study-transhumance-and-shielings/ |website=ScARF |access-date=7 September 2022}}</ref>{{sfn|Bil|1990|pp=233 "Shieling settlements often survive as prominent ruins in present-day upland areas [of the central Scottish highlands]"; 235 "Surveys of present-day ruins also confirm the widespread distribution of this single-apartment design."}} as are place-names containing "shield" or their Gaelic equivalents, such as Pollokshields in Glasgow,<ref name=Shiel>{{cite web |url=http://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/shiel_n_v1 |title=Scottish National Dictionary 1700- |publisher=Dictionary of the Scots Language |access-date=24 December 2018}}</ref> Arinagour on the island of Coll,<ref name=Airigh>{{cite web |url=https://learngaelic.scot/dictionary/index.jsp?abairt=Airigh&slang=both&wholeword=false |title=Learn Gaelic |publisher=Learn Gaelic.Scot/Dictionary |access-date=25 December 2018 |archive-date=26 December 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181226035434/https://learngaelic.scot/dictionary/index.jsp?abairt=Airigh&slang=both&wholeword=false |url-status=live }}</ref> Galashiels in the Scottish Borders,<ref name=Shiels>{{cite web |url=https://swap.nesc.gla.ac.uk/database/?search=&page=2&order=3&d=2 |title=Scots Words and Place-names |publisher=Place-Name Glossary |access-date=9 December 2018 |archive-date=10 December 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181210063314/https://swap.nesc.gla.ac.uk/database/?search=&page=2&order=3&d=2 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name=Galashiels>{{cite web |url=http://www.scottish-places.info/towns/townhistory230.html |title=Galashiels |publisher=Scottish Places |access-date=9 December 2018 |archive-date=10 December 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181210015841/http://www.scottish-places.info/towns/townhistory230.html |url-status=live }}</ref> and "Shiels Brae" near Bewcastle.<ref name=HE/> Turf-built shielings have typically gradually eroded and disappeared, but traces of stone-built structures persist in the landscape.<ref name=HE/> Some shielings are medieval in origin and were occasionally occupied permanently after the abandonment of the transhumance system. The construction of associated structures such as stack-stands{{efn|These were small raised platforms to construct haystacks on, to keep the hay as dry as possible when there was no room to bring it inside the shieling.<ref name="Griffiths 2018">{{cite web |last1=Griffiths |first1=Karen |title=Stackstands and stackgarths |url=https://www.yorkshiredales.org.uk/stackstands-and-stackgarths/ |publisher=Yorkshire Dales National Park |access-date=5 September 2022 |date=15 June 2018 |archive-date=5 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220905181108/https://www.yorkshiredales.org.uk/stackstands-and-stackgarths/ |url-status=live }}</ref>}} and enclosures indicate that in these cases they became farmsteads, some of which evolved into contemporary farms.<ref name=HE>{{cite web |title=Introductions to Heritage Assets: Shielings |url=https://content.historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/iha-shielings/shielings.pdf/ |publisher=English Heritage / Historic England |date=May 2011 |access-date=22 January 2017 |archive-date=2 February 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170202010908/https://content.historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/iha-shielings/shielings.pdf/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== Scottish shieling songs ===

Many Scottish songs have been written about life in shielings, often concerning courtship and love.<ref name="Gauld Langhorne 2021">{{cite web |last1=Gauld |first1=Munro |last2=Langhorne |first2=Ceit |title=The Musical Heritage of Glenmoriston: A Scoping Exercise |url=https://www.glenmoriston.net/assets/docs/heritage/The_Musical_Heritage_of_Glenmoriston_Report_12.3.21.pdf |website=Glenmoriston.net |access-date=7 September 2022 |date=March 2021 |archive-date=7 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220907152151/https://www.glenmoriston.net/assets/docs/heritage/The_Musical_Heritage_of_Glenmoriston_Report_12.3.21.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> Several of these are in Alexander Macdonald's 1914 ''Story and Song from Loch Ness-side'', including "Cha teid mi Choir Odhar", "Chunacas gruagach ‘s an aonach", and "A fhlesgaich is cummaire", all from Perthshire, and "Luinneag Airidh" (a shieling lovesong).<ref name="Gauld Langhorne 2021"/><ref>{{cite book |last=Macdonald |first=Alexander |title=Story and Song from Loch Ness-side |year=1914 |publisher=Northern Counties Newspaper and Printing and Publishing Company |place=Inverness |chapter=14 "The Ceilidh" (songs in Gaelic) |url=http://dbooks.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/books/PDFs/590635432.pdf |access-date=7 September 2022 |archive-date=7 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220907152230/http://dbooks.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/books/PDFs/590635432.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> The song "''Chunacas gruagach 's an aonach''" includes the lines

<poem>"Many times often you and I, Have been at the shieling{{efn|The word used in the original song here is {{langx|gd|àirigh}}.<ref>{{cite dictionary |last=Ó Dónaill |first=Niall |author-link=Niall Ó Dónaill |title=Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla |publisher=An Gúm |url=http://www.teanglann.ie/en/fgb/airigh |access-date=5 September 2022 |year=1977 |archive-date=5 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220905192444/https://www.teanglann.ie/en/fgb/airigh |url-status=live }}</ref>}} on Brae Rannoch. On the hillock of the waterfall, Where we were resting. In the bothy of the dalliance, With a brushwood screen for door. My mouth placed on your fragrant mouth, And my hand would be round you, my love."<ref name="Gauld Langhorne 2021"/></poem>

The song is similar to the famous<ref name="Gauld Langhorne 2021"/> "Bothan Àirigh am Bràigh Raithneach" (The Shieling bothy on Brae Rannoch).<ref name="Gauld Langhorne 2021"/><ref name=Uam>{{cite web |last=Fowlis |first=Julie |author-link=Julie Fowlis |url=http://www.juliefowlis.com/songs/ |title=Na h-òrain air 'Uam' / The songs on 'Uam' |publisher=Julie Fowlis |year=2011 |access-date=8 July 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121014165014/http://www.juliefowlis.com/songs/ |archive-date=14 October 2012}}</ref> Shielings are mentioned in the folk song "Mairi's Wedding",<ref>{{cite book |last=Roberton |first=Hugh S. |author-link=Hugh S. Roberton |title=Songs of the Isles |section=Lewis Bridal Song (Mairi's Wedding) |location=London |publisher=J. Curwen & Sons |year=1937 |pages=20–21 |url=http://imslp.org/wiki/Lewis_Bridal_Song_(Bannerman,_John_R.) |access-date=5 September 2022 |archive-date=7 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220907184325/https://imslp.org/wiki/Lewis_Bridal_Song_(Bannerman,_John_R.) |url-status=live }}</ref> in the weaver poet Robert Tannahill's song "Gilly Callum",<ref name="Tannahill 1853">{{cite book |last1=Tannahill |first1=Robert |last2=Ramsay |first2=Philip A. |title=The works of Robert Tannahill: with life of the author, and a memoir of Robert A. Smith, the musical composer |date=1853 |publisher=A. Fullarton and Co. |location=Edinburgh |page=14 |url=https://archive.org/details/worksofroberttan00tann/page/14/mode/2up}}</ref> and in the musicologist William Sharp's "Shieling Song" of 1896,<ref>{{cite web |last=Sharp |first=William |author-link=William Sharp (writer) |title=Vocal settings of 'Shieling song' |url=http://www.lieder.net/lieder/get_text.html?TextId=41302 |publisher=The LiederNet Archive |year=1896 |access-date=26 March 2013 |archive-date=12 March 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170312034353/http://www.lieder.net/lieder/get_text.html?TextId=41302 |url-status=live }}</ref> and in the title of Marjory Kennedy-Fraser's tune "Island Sheiling Song".<ref>{{cite web |url=https://archives.collections.ed.ac.uk/repositories/2/archival_objects/190998 |title=Music Fragments & Various, c 1900–1925 |publisher=The University of Edinburgh |access-date=13 October 2022 |quote=Envelope marked ‘Duets’: letter from Marie Thomson, Edinburgh, 15 September 1923, ‘The Road to the Isles’, manuscript, arranged for twopart chorus by Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, ‘Milking Croon’ and ‘Island Sheiling Song’ and ‘Pulling the Sea-Dulse’, manuscripts, arranged for two voices by Marjory Kennedy-Fraser. |archive-date=13 October 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221013233856/https://archives.collections.ed.ac.uk/repositories/2/archival_objects/190998 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.nls.uk/media/1056439/section-14-ma-mckay.pdf |title=Discography section 14: Ma-McKay |publisher=National Library of Scotland |access-date=26 March 2013 |archive-date=1 February 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130201214416/http://www.nls.uk/media/1056439/section-14-ma-mckay.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> Edward Thomas wrote a poem called "The Shieling".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/collections/item/2941 |title=The First World War Poetry Digital Archive: The Shieling |publisher=OUCS.ox.ac.uk (originally Faber & Faber) |access-date=26 March 2013 |last=Thomas |first=Edward |archive-date=26 April 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140426201725/http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/collections/item/2941 |url-status=dead }}</ref> The Scottish poet Robert Burns mentions a "shiel" in his song "Bessy and her Spinnin' Wheel"<ref name=Burns>{{cite web |last1=Burns |first=Robert |url=http://www.robertburns.org/works/376.shtml |title=Bessy and her Spinnin' Wheel |year=1792 |via=robertburns.com |access-date=7 December 2018 |archive-date=5 October 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181005031817/http://www.robertburns.org/works/376.shtml |url-status=live }}</ref> and his poem "The Country Lass".<ref name=Robert-Burns>{{cite web |last1=Burns |first=Robert |url=http://www.robertburns.org/works/375.shtml |title=The Country Lass |year=1792 |via=robertburns.com |access-date=24 December 2018 |archive-date=5 October 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181005035818/http://www.robertburns.org/works/375.shtml |url-status=live }}</ref>

== Case studies ==

Shieling huts were not always addressed in the earliest work of the Scottish national archaeological survey body, RCAHMS, for two principal reasons. The scope of their survey was limited to those monuments that pre-dated 1707 AD, while the resourcing of the operation was such that no comprehensive survey of such a common monument type was practical until developments in survey technology and increased resourcing in the late 1980s. That said, a mention in their report third on Caithness in 1911 gives an interesting summary of professional thinking at that time:

{{blockquote|A number of oblong structures with rounded ends are the remains of shieling bothies connected with the practices of farming in former days. They are to be found in the upland part of the county, usually situated on low hillocks in a sheltered hollow by the side of a burn. The booth consisted of a dwelling apartment and a place for storing the milk vessels, while there was in addition a small fold to keep the calves separated from the cows during the night. The women and girls went up yearly to the shielings with the cows about midsummer, and there remained, making butter and cheese for a month or six weeks, while the hill pasture was good. The practice had fallen into disuse by the end of the 18th century.<ref>{{cite book |last=RCAHMS |title=Third report and inventory of monuments and constructions in the county of Caithness |publisher=HMSO |year=1911 |pages=xxxviii, 150–2, 228, 300, 302, 303}}</ref><ref>See also: {{cite book |last=Henderson |first=John |title=General View of the Agriculture of the County of Caithness |date=1815 |pages=145-1466}}</ref>}}

The ''First Edition Survey Project'' (1995-2001) was a desktop survey funded and managed by Historic Scotland and the RCAHMS. The project was conceived in the context of growing concern about the state of knowledge of Scotland's medieval or later rural settlement, and its aim was to provide a rapid and nationwide enhancement to the National Monuments Record of Scotland by recording those structures depicted as unroofed on the first edition of the Ordnance Survey (OS) 6-inch map of Scotland (published between 1843 and 1878). The project was particularly successful in recording 3,103 shieling huts (or groups of huts), 55% of the total of recorded shieling huts at that time. The survey team recorded all structures associated with sheiling activity (huts, dairies and stores) as 'shieling hut'. Where the OS map had not labelled them as 'shieling' or 'old shieling', but the size, morphology or location of the structures suggested that they were shieling huts, the suffix 'possible' was added to the classification. Although roofed buildings were excluded from the project, an exception was made for the shieling huts on the Isle of Lewis, many of which were still roofed or in use at the date of the first edition survey (1848–52). The project was reported on by the RCAHMS, with a map of shieling sites.<ref>{{cite book |last=RCAHMS |title=But the Walls Remained, a survey of unroofed rural settlement depicted on the first edition of the Ordnance Survey 6-inch map of Scotland |date=2002 |publisher=RCAHMS and Historic Scotland}}</ref>

In 1990, an archaeological survey of the Waternish peninsula on the Island of Skye by RCAHMS recorded about 60 shieling huts and 60 shieling mounds. The surveyors found the huts to be spread relatively evenly in the hinterland, and outside the main areas of settlement but on some occasions they were found within the present boundaries of a crofting township, indicating the closeness of some shieling huts to their parent settlement. Indeed, on some occasions, the huts had been leveled by cultivation and in others a township boundary had been built across them. The huts were found in three main types: sub-rectangular stone-walled huts; huts defined by a wall of turf, peat and stone which, through prolonged use, had built up into a mound; multi-celled structures. Another important characteristic was the presence, in some instances, of buildings that were similar in character to those found in pre-Clearance townships. In these cases, they were interpreted as shieling huts, albeit of a less usual form. The results of the survey have been published.<ref>{{cite book |last=RCAHMS |title=Waternish, Skye and Lochalsh District, Highland Region: an archaeological survey |date=1993}} The data are held in the [https://www.trove.scot/archive/2028720 Trove database].</ref>

== Protection == Some thousands of shieling huts, or groups of huts, have been recorded in the Scottish National Record of the Historic Environment.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.trove.scot/search?q=shieling%2Bhut&page_type=All&viewmode=grid |title=National Record of the Historic Environment |publisher=Historic Environment Scotland |access-date=15 October 2025}}</ref>

== Notes == {{notelist}}

== References == {{reflist}}

== Sources == * {{cite book |last=Bil |first=Albert |year=1990 |title=The Shieling, 1600–1840: The case of the central Scottish highlands |publisher=John Donald |place=Edinburgh |isbn=978-0859761581}} * {{cite book |last=Cooper |first=Derek |title=Skye |publisher=Routledge |year=1983 |pages=124–125 |isbn=978-0710095657 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ys49AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA125}}

== Further reading== * {{cite web |last=Munro |first=Neil |title=The Lost Pibroch and other Shieling Stories |publisher=William Blackwood and Sons |year=1899 |url=https://archive.org/details/lostpibrochando00munrgoog |ref=none}}

== External links == * [https://web.archive.org/web/20130429182845/http://www.incallander.co.uk/shielings.htm The Shielings in Scotland: The origins of the Shielings and their function] * [https://www.mountainbothies.org.uk/ The Mountain Bothies Association]

Category:Stone houses Category:Agricultural buildings in Scotland Category:Huts Category:House types in the United Kingdom Category:Scottish traditions Category:Transhumance Category:Pastoral shelters