General view showing black houses at Kentangaval, Barra.

Description General view showing black houses at Kentangaval, Barra.

Date 24/9/1895

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

Catalogue Number SC 747067

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of IN 875

Scope and Content Kentangaval, Barra, Western Isles Barra is one of the southernmost islands in the Outer Hebrides, and the most westerly inhabited in Scotland. This photograph of a crofting community in Kentangaval, taken in 1895 by Erskine Beveridge, provides a unique photographic record of the island's traditional blackhouses. These squat, 19th-century houses are built of stone, which was plentiful on the island, and constructed without mortar. They have thick, rounded walls, with an exposed broad wall-top which extends round the house, a characteristic feature of this type of architecture. The end walls are the same height as those at the front and back, and there are small openings for windows and a door in the front wall. The roof is of thatch, fastened down with ropes, the ends of which are attached to anchor-stones. Protruding from each end of the roof ridge is a 'raven-stick' which serves as an anchor for the ropes that hold the thatch. The roof has underlying timbers (exposed in the house on the right), a valuable commodity on a treeless island. The name 'blackhouse' comes from the Gaelic, 'tigh dubh', and their architecture and layout carry on traditions of a from of living and working that is very old. Blackhouses are found throughout the Outer Hebrides, and until 1850, were of a similar character, with walls of double thickness, built of drystone and with thatched roofs. However, from the 1850s, new buildings of a mainland type began to appear. Their single-thickness walls, cemented with lime mortar, presented such a contrast that they got the name 'tigh gael' or 'white house'. The antonym 'blackhouse' was then applied to older houses in the region. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

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File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap