These are clochans, the dry-stone corbelled huts known colloquially as beehive huts for their rounded, tapering profiles, built without mortar by stacking flat stones in gradually inward-leaning courses until they meet at the top. Three of them once stood here in a conjoined arrangement, a grouping that suggests deliberate communal or monastic use rather than a single hermit's retreat.

The three huts were recorded by name on Ordnance Survey maps as early as 1838, and again on the 1921 edition: Torthigh Beg, Torthigh More, and Torthigh East. The names themselves, distinguishing between small, large, and easterly, point to a time when the structures were well enough known locally to carry individual identities. Of the three, only one retains any standing fabric. The other two have collapsed, and their presence is now suggested only by low, grass-covered undulations in the ground, the kind of gentle humps that are easy to overlook unless you are specifically looking for them. The site is a National Monument in state ownership.