Hoy, Rackwick, Burnmouth

ND 20476 98743 Early 19th century single storey bothy with adjoining lower projection to north east gable. The bothy has a heather thatched roof, with a continuous heather ridge. The thatch is netted and weighted with stones along the ridge, in a row along the centre of the thatch and secured to the eaves. There is a small amount of mossy vegetation growth across the surface of the thatch. Both the main building and the NE projection, which has a flagstone roof, are open publicly as a bothy. The notes of the listing description read ‘this long, low building displays two important and traditional roofing types peculiar to Orkney. The main block is heather thatched; the roof of the lower projection comprises large flagstones overlaying a timber frame. Reinstated by the Hoy Trust as a bothy for visitors’.

Visited by Zoe Herbert (SPAB) 14 July 2015, survey no.142

ND29NW 2 ND 20475 98744

This former farmstead is situated in the crofting township of Rackwick on the island of Hoy, lying at the top of the shingle beach and to the S of the Rackwick Burn. It comprises one roofed building now in use as a bothy, a roofless building set parallel to it, a small hut and an enclosure. Some of the ground around the bothy and between the burn and the sea has been cultivated in the past, while a large area of peat cuttings can be seen about 200m to the NNE.

The 19th century farmstead is depicted on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map as two roofed buildings and an enclosure (Orkney, sheet cxviii, 1882). On the night of the 1881 census it was occupied by farmer James Nicolson (38), his wife Mary Ann (39) and her mother Barbra Mowat (78), and the couples 5 children, Mary Ann (13), Jamima (9), James (7), John (5) and Sinclair (2).

Information from HES Archaeological Survey (D M Bratt and G Geddes) 8 July 2022

(Allan 2017, 270-1)