About the Shieling Project

There are lots of ways to volunteer at the Shieling Project. You can come during our volunteer days held during the week, or you can come to a volunteer weekend. If you really like it you can come and live at the project and support the staff delivering our residentials and holidays.   The directors of the project are volunteers, as are our advisors. So if you feel like you have skills that could help us run the Shieling Project please get in touch.For more information on volunteering opportunities follow us on our social media, or look at our Calendar and News pages.

You can hire the whole site and make use of our outstanding location and simple but beautiful off-grid facilities. We are 2km from any other habitation guaranteeing a safe bubble for your and your team! We have accommodation for up to 36 people in our bespoke bothies, a large ‘classroom’ space which can easily fit everyone and includes chairs, tables and AV equipment. Other facilities include a lovely communal kitchen space for cooking, two compost toilet areas, shower room and pizza oven. We are keen to host groups who would like to use our site for organisational development or events like staff training, or would like our input into sustainability and environmental leadership. Running your event at the Shieling Project can inspire your group, or give your staff ideas for new ways of working. Being at the Shieling Project also gives the chance to see and live a sustainable lifestyle which can compliment the theme of your event or the topic of your meeting.

Young people had a fundamental role at the shieling: they took on new responsibilities, learning about themselves and the landscape beyond their homes. It was a time for making butter and cheese, stocking up on materials from the hills: dyes, peat, heather, and for revisiting the stories that defined the weave of people and place. Shieling life was well established for at least two thousand years in parts of Scotland, and is still a fairly recent memory for some in the Western Isles.

The Shieling Project is dedicated to learning more about this rich tradition. We have undertaken an archaeological survey and dig of our nearest shieling at Allt Moraig. Here we discovered the ruins of 27 structures and during the dig we excavated two of these more fully. We are also gathering stories of shieling life from all over Scotland, with a focus on our local area. We hope to continue this archaeological and historical research and match it up with our experiences milking and grazing our cattle.

At the risk of over-simplifying the ‘Shieling’, it might be defined as:

• a grazing area in the hills, away from arable and cultivated ground and occupied seasonally in the months of summer
• as a summer dwelling, in the form of a small structure of stone and turf
• as a legal entity, included in grants and titles to land
• a way of life, recalled in the memories of older generations and in stories songs and oral tradition

A family’s main dwelling was in the ‘wintertown’ located in the low, arable ground and arable, and in the summertime they and their animals moved from ‘wintertown’ to summer pasture in the high ground. These ‘shielings’ were occupied for any time between six and fourteen weeks, perhaps more commonly nine to ten weeks. In May or early June, most inhabitants of the township made an organised and communal move to the shielings. Families carried all their necessities and tools, and the shieling huts were repaired for occupation.

The menfolk then returned to the wintertown to carry on the farming work of the summer months, repairing and thatching houses, and cutting and drying the peats for winter fuel. Women and children occupied the shieling for the weeks of summer, herding the animals to ensure they had the best of the summer grazing to put them into good shape, and milking and butter and cheese making. Personal accounts of life in the Shieling on the experience of being ‘on holiday’, of gaining a sense of wellbeing and renewal, and of a freedom otherwise unknown among the constraints of normal everyday life. Gaelic songs celebrate this freedom located within a strong sense of place.