Description

Circa 1810. 2-storey, 3-bay traditional farmhouse with earlier 18th century single-storey block adjoining W gable to form L-plan. Associated U-plan steading situated to SW. Harled, squared and snecked rubble with regularly spaced openings. Later, single-storey, pitched roof porch to central bay of S (principal) elevation with timber-boarded door. Upper windows set close to eaves level; smaller openings at E and W gable ends.

Timber sash and case windows throughout; 4-pane glazed to ground floor; 9-pane to upper level. Grey Ballachulish slate and tall, harled stacks to main block. Thicker, Tomintoul slate and unharled stacks with thack-stanes to single storey block. Prominent skews; clay cans.

INTERIOR: Good interior details including 2-leaf panelled timber door and etched glass to porch vestibule, lime washed pine panelling to walls and ceiling of single-storey section, timber panelled doors, timber fire surround with consoled mantelpiece, timber shutters. Cellar.

STEADING BLOCK: Late 18th century. U-plan with additional detached range to North. Random rubble with irregular openings. Pitched, corrugated-iron roof. Stone-cobbled floors. Timber partitions and hay-troughs in relatively good state of repair.

Statement of Interest

Dalnavert is a good relatively unaltered example of an early 19th century farmhouse and steading with good surviving interior details. The building is situated on open ground sloping down to the Strathspey.

The earliest written reference to the Estate is a charter of 1338 in which the Earl of Ross grants land at Dalnavert to Shaw, son of Farquar, for 'a mansion house to the South of the existing mansion house'. The land at Dalnavert remained with the Shaw family for centuries. There is written evidence referring to a '3-roomed old house with one chimney' belonging to Major Thomas Shaw that may be the single-storey mid 18th century section. Miss Grant of Rothiemurchus, quoted by I F Grant writing in 1782 of the Shaws of Dalnavert, states that the Shaw house 'contained three rooms, each of which had a window with four panes'. Members of the Shaw family built the 2-storey section of the house after the death of Thomas Shaw in 1810 and may have incorporated part of the earlier Shaw residence. The roof of this single-storey section has been latterly reinstated.

To the S of the house is a mound which is either the remnants of a medieval building or possibly a bronze age burial site. Helen Shaw of Dalnavert was the mother of John Macdonald (b.1815), the first Prime Minister of Canada whose house in Winnipeg, now a museum, is also called Dalnavert.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q77780083

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Hampshire: Winchester and the North (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Hampshire: South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair by Hunt. Roger ( 2008 ) Hardcover
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990: Updated version
• 
  Gwent/Monmouthshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Wales)
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides): Written by Charles O'Brien, 2014 Edition, Publisher: Yale University Press [Hardcover]