Field Visit
These thatched and hip-roofed buildings of thick-walled Hebridean type occupy a site on Cnoc Bhiosta. The buildings, which probably date from the first half of the 19th century, are grouped in a linear plan comprising dwelling, store, and barn, and are associated with a walled enclosure which remains partly in use as a stackyard. Buildings of a later date, which have walls of lesser thickness and roofs of tarred felt, adjoin the SE angle and the N end of the range, serving respectively as stable and byre (formerly workshop).
The dwelling-house, which faces E, is oblong on plan, and measures 13'1 m from N to S by 7'4 m transversely over walls varying in thickness between 1'5 m and 1·8 m. The masonry comprises local random rubble, pointed for the most part with lime mortar, and the walls, which are slightly battered, have squared external angles. An exposed wall-head, about 0'9 m in average width and partly grass-grown, runs round the building and is reached by stone steps set into the N end-wall close to the NE angle. The doorway and windows have deep open reveals which are lintelled only over their inner sections, roughly corresponding to the thickness of the thatch overlying the inner portion of the wall-head. The roof has a rounded ridge-profile and the thatch, which is of bent-grass, is secured by an arrangement of wire mesh and roped anchor-stones. There are prominent chimney-stacks at each end of the building. The plan of the interior comprises a simple tripartite division of kitchen, closet and 'room', all being entered from a central lobby. The kitchen fireplace has a hinged wooden smoke-board, and is equipped with a cast-iron oven range and a chain suspended above the grate.
A small transversely aligned store-shed adjoins the S wall of the dwelling, and, to judge from the slight remains of a drain, this division may originally have served as a byre. The visible roof-structures of the store and of the barn comprise principal rafters which are lap-jointed at the ridge, and the bent-grass thatch is laid on a groundwork of turf. The walls are of dry-stone construction, and set within the thickness of the wall at the NE angle of the barn there is a small lintelled passage and chamber, which evidently served latterly as a duck's nest (1).
RCAHMS 1980, visited August 1973
