Arnisdale. General view of the village.

Description Arnisdale. General view of the village.

Date c. 1898

Collection Papers of Erskine Beveridge, antiquarian, Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland

Catalogue Number SC 748658

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of IN 870

Scope and Content Arnisdale, Highland Arnisdale, a small crofting and fishing community on the north shore of Loch Hourn, lies in a remote area of Lochalsh on the west coast of Scotland. This photograph of a group of traditional Highland blackhouses was taken by Erskine Beveridge c.1898. The wide sweep of the bay is lined with thatched cottages of a type commonly found in Skye and Lochalsh in the late 18th or early 19th century. They are constructed of rough stones, and the roofs are hip-ended with the overhanging eaves of thatch forming a fringe around the wall-head. Many have been replaced by 'modern' stone-built cottages which stand behind the original house on the long thin strip of land allocated to each croft. These 'modern' cottages, which probably date from the second half of the 19th century, are stone-built and whitewashed, with slated roofs and a chimney at each gable. In the early 19th century, most houses in the area, apart from castles, churches and lairds' houses, were constructed with rough stone walls, either clay-mortared or held together without mortar at all, and thatched roofs. From the 1850s, new buildings with gable ends and slated roofs began to appear. Their walls, cemented with lime mortar, presented such a contrast that they received the Gaelic name 'tigh geal' or 'white house'. The antonym 'tigh dubh' or 'blackhouse' was then applied to the older cottages. Many of the blackhouses survived as habitable dwellings well into the 20th century, but many were converted into barns, byres and outbuildings. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

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File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap