The Rossglass Pig Crews

The Follies Trust conserved two small structures, called pig crews, at Rossglass near Killough in County Down in 2016. The work was undertaken with funding from the Palatine Trust, the Follies Trust and Landfill Community Fund, through Down Council, distributed by Ulster Wildlife Trust. The term ‘crew’ is derived from the Scots word ‘crue’ which means an ‘animal pen, fold, or sty’. The older one is the corbelled building while the second is the later and more common type of pig crew which would have had a sloping, slated roof, now missing. The buildings have no windows as sows prefer dark enclosed spaces for farrowing.

The popularity of pig crews in Lecale is related to the extensive grain-growing capabilities of the area in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. When the greater part of the land was given over to grain production there was less land available for cattle and sheep to graze. As a consequence, pigs were kept in larger numbers and they were easily fattened on grain. As a result of this, pork often played a more important role in the Lecale diet than elsewhere. Animal bones from medieval archaeological excavations in Lecale generally produce higher quantities of pig bones than other sites in Ireland.

In 1956 Professor Ronnie Buchanan published an article titled ‘Corbelled Structures in Lecale, County Down’ in the Ulster Journal of Archaeology. In this he identified a series of small corbelled buildings consisting of wells, pigsties, hen houses and even a dog kennel, with characteristic pyramid-shaped roofs, that were unique to this area. The dates of these buildings are difficult to ascertain and Buchanan was of the opinion that they were probably of the late 18th or early 19th century. Unfortunately some of these buildings have disappeared since this publication or have fallen into ruin. One of the finest of these buildings is the pig crew at Rossglass which still has its roof though it had fallen into disrepair prior to intervention by the Follies Trust.

2015 before work started:

2016 after work was completed: