Auchindrain Old Village / Auchindrain Township Open Air Museum

The last stop before Inveraray is the open-air museum of Auchindrain (6mi/9.6km southwest of Invererary). The buildings, traditional longhouses and peasants' cottages are displayed in their original condition and the museum's aim is to show how the rural population of the West Highlands lived during the late 19th century. Apart from the smallholders of Auchindrain who grew their cereal crops, potatoes and root vegetables on the flat land and then grazed their sheep and cattle on the hillsides, the village was also home to the cottars who as payment for their work received a small plot of land which they were allowed to cultivate. In the middle of the 19th century the settlement had 65 inhabitants but the last tenant left the village in 1962. The farmers' longhouses consisted usually of a living room, a small side room, kitchen, toilet and barn or stables all under one roof, while the cottars eked out a very humble existence in a simple hut.