Building 5
The largest single-roomed building on the site is 5, at 17m long x 4.5m wide internally. This long byre may have had a house at the west end but no evidence of a habitation was found, so it is more likely that the cobbled floor at that end, and without a central drain, was a barn or storage area. The long open drain measures 13m in length and clearly was made to accommodate a small herd of animals. The entire north wall was robbed but its position was defined by the line of the external cobbled courtyard. This wall is now represented by a double line of stones. The only entrance which survived was the one at the east end where a cobbled pathway leads from the door, which also acted as the outlet for the drain. Another door may have existed along the north wall.
Underlying building 5 is an earlier structure which can be detected by the wall running at an angle below the south wall of the byre and also by the floor surface which can be seen to underlie part of the open drain.
At some stage a small chamber was built against the south wall, possibly to house a single animal such as a horse.
Building 6
This very neatly made byre measures 8m x 4m and is distinguished from others by the configuration of animal stances. Here beasts were stalled facing the end walls rather than the long walls as in all other byres, so there appears to be much more space for animals with a wide central drainage area which discharged through the doorway. The spaces for timber feeding boxes can be seen against each end wall. This byre was added on to building 5, incorporating corner stones of the larger byre. The smaller byre may have been reserved for special, or perhaps larger animals than most on the farm, for it appears to have had no other function, very few objects having been found here and no burning evident on the floor.
Building 7
This was also a byre to start with, measuring 7.5m x 4m. It had a cobbled floor surface and a space for feel boxes against building 6. Another area of cobble-free ground is immediately inside and right of the doorway, so there may have been a timber structure, such as a storage box, in this position as well. Building 7 was the last of the group to be built as the stones of its walls abut on the end of building 6. There has been some rebuilding on the west side.
The most interesting aspect of this chamber is that it had a change of function from a byre to a blacksmith’s workshop. The proof of this is that the last blacksmith left his anvil behind, now on display at Biggar Museum. Archaeologists worked out the location of the hearth and bellows by the position of two post holes in the floor and the slated area, presumably a working zone, which was surrounded by iron slag, clinker and coal fragments.
Further to this, a travelling blacksmith came annually to the modern farm at Glenochar until about 1940. All local people brought along their horses and equipment for farrier work and repair, so it seems likely that this was a tradition which reached back to the time when there was a resident blacksmith at the old farm of Glenochar.
