View showing blackhouses on Boreray (at NF 8563 8058), taken from the SSW

Description View showing blackhouses on Boreray (at NF 8563 8058), taken from the SSW

Date 12/5/1904

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

Catalogue Number SC 746932

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of IN 927

Scope and Content Boreray, North Uist, Western Isles Boreray, a small, flattish island of sand-dunes and off-shore rocks, is separated from the tip of the north-west peninsula of North Uist by a channel nearly 2km wide. This photograph of a crofting community of traditional blackhouses on the island was taken c.1882 by Erskine Beveridge. The cottages, each surrounded by a low, drystone wall which encloses the barn, byre and kitchen garden to the rear, probably date from the early 19th century. The houses have low stone walls, and steeply pitched roofs of thatch, secured by thick ropes anchored by stones around the wall-head. At the apex of each hip of the roof is a protruding stick, a 'raven-stick', which serves as an anchor for the ropes that hold the thatch on the hip. A short chimney, which rises above the central hearth in the kitchen floor, emerges from the thatch roof ridge. Erskine Beveridge (1851-1920), son of the founder of St Leonard's Linen Works, Dunfermline, was a writer, antiquarian and linen manufacturer, whose private income allowed him to indulge his two main passions, archaeology and photography. One of his main archaeological works, 'North Uist: its archaeology & topography', published in 1911, was described as a careful and acute observation, both in the surveying and in the exploration of ancient sites. His collection of photographs of the old village blackhouse sites are of excellent quality and composition, and provide a unique photographic record of an ancient form of architecture. Beveridge bought the Vallay Estate in North Uist, which allowed him unrestricted access to the outlying islands, as well as an opportunity to excavate a number of sites. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/746932

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap