Publication Account

Date 1988

Event ID 656343

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Publication Account

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/656343

NF19NW 21.07 10128 99361

This drystone structure lies end-on to the street, and, as with Blackhouse C, there is a smaller, transversely aligned building contiguous with its upper N end. Blackhouse G and its successor, House 7, were occupied by the Gillies family.

The main unit measures 6.76m by 2.9m within walls up to 1.6m thick; the side-walls stand to a height of 1.83m, while the gables are 2.9m high, the external angles of the S end-wall being rounded and the narrower upper parts of the gables being later additions. Cement and tar along the wall-heads indicate the edges of the last roof. The doorway is near the S end of the E side-wall and beneath its paved threshold runs a drain. The lintels of the window-opening a little to the N in the same wall are missing. Two pieces of iron project from the W side-wall near the floor; neither has a ring, but they are likely to have been used for tethering beasts. A drain runs beneath the S end-wall and under the street. At the N end the lower parts of the adjacent inner wall-faces are not bonded, and there is a large lintel-like stone in the N end-wall but no clearly defined associated jambs.

Internally, the N unit measures 3.74m by 2.62m, the walls being up to 1.22m thick and the angles rounded. The doorway, which is at the S end of the E wall, has outer and inner lintels of stone and timber respectively, and contains the post and lintel of a wooden door-frame. At the W end of the interior there is a narrow platform 0.28m high.

Part of the S side-wall, adjacent to the N gable of the main building, collapsed in 1984, revealing part of a lintelled aperture and wall-face within the thickness of the wall. This probably represents the remains of a passage leading into a crib or wall-bed, the newly revealed wall-face probably being part of the inner wall of the bed chamber itself. The chamber was presumably destroyed when the N building was added, and the crib entrance covered or removed when the N wall of the main building was refaced, hence the lack of bonding at the internal angles. This building is noted on Sharbau's plan as having a bed in the wall.

On the E side of the building a paved path leads from the upper doorway past the lower entrance to the street. On the W side a small stream is canalised between Blackhouses G and H and runs through a culvert to emerge on the S side of the street.

G P Stell and M Harman 1988.