Geograph - photograph every grid square

The ruins of Garmore: central southern building

For an overview of the site, see NS3680 : The ruins of Garmore.

For a view of the whole building, see NS3680 : The ruins of Garmore: central southern building. The interior wall detail is also shown in NS3680 : The ruins of Garmore: interior details. (The building that is visible in the background is discussed separately: NS3680 : The ruins of Garmore: the western building.)

I had been here before, but returned because I wanted to get a better sense of how this particular building was laid out. In the present photograph, the taller wall, with the decoration, is the western wall. The decoration continues around the northern wall (on the right), to the eastern wall (behind the photographer). No traces appear on the southern wall, which was apparently left bare. The decoration is a mortar-like material, applied directly to the stones of the wall. The care spent on its interior suggests that, for the occupants of the farmstead, this building was the main habitation.

A couple of gaps are visible in the northern wall (the much lower wall on the right). The one on the left is what remains of a window-frame, about 1.1 metres wide. The gap at the lower-right corner of the image was a door, positioned centrally in the wall. There were two windows in this wall, placed symmetrically on either side of the door; the gap for the other window-frame is out of shot, to the right. These windows would have rarely have received sunlight; instead, they looked out onto the other buildings of the farmstead, and the courtyard enclosed by them.

As well as the above-mentioned door in the centre of the northern wall, there is a better-preserved door at the eastern end of the southern wall. In the present view, that door cannot be seen, because it is behind the photographer's position. However, it can be seen, as an opening near the left-hand edge of the image, in NS3680 : The ruins of Garmore: the eastern building.