Following the launch of trove.scot in February 2025 we are now planning the retiral of some of our webservices. Canmore will be switched off on 24th June 2025. Information about the closure can be found on the HES website: Retiral of HES web services | Historic Environment Scotland
Recording Your Heritage Online
Event ID 566240
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Recording Your Heritage Online
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/566240
SCARP (off North Harris) 'One compact mountain' a mile off Huisinish, Scarp was the site of the first ever mail-by-rocket experiment, carried out (unsuccessfully) by Gerhard Zucker in 1934 . Historically, the island belonged to the same ownership as Harris, from where dispossessed families arrived in the 1820s to swell the population of eight families. Sixteen crofts created in 1868 were later subdivided and the population reached a peak of 213 in 1881. It was down to 74 in 1951 and 20 years later the last remaining inhabitants left. A few cottages survive today as holiday homes. On the east side, overlooking the narrow hamlets, some of their blackhouses (later used as steadings) built back to back, the spaces between them filled with earth and stones. In the burial ground is An Teampall - the scant remains of a chapel built by Alasdair Crotach as a dependent of St. Clement's, Harris. School and schoolhouse within a large stone walled enclosure, Alexander Ross, 1879 (closed 1967). Mission house, and adjacent dwelling, c.1891, in use until 1971. Re-roofed for use as a bothy, 2006
Taken from "Western Seaboard: An Illustrated Architectural Guide", by Mary Miers, 2008. Published by the Rutland Press http://www.rias.org.uk
