St Kilda, Hirta, Village Bay, Blackhouse P

This small roughly-built blackhouse stands adjacent to Blackhouse Q on croft no. 12, tenanted by the Macqueens from the 1830s and Norman Gillies from 1852. It stands on the site of one or possibly two earlier structures, evidence for which can be seen at the SW, NW and NE corners. The building measures 4.11m from N to S by 2.3m transversely within walls between 1.2m and 1.7m in thickness The N end of the building is set into the slope and here the gable, the upper part of which is probably secondary, measures 2.3m in internal height. Some poor repair work has been undertaken at the NW corner and the interior is obscured by rubble, although a platform at the NE corner may be an original feature. There is a possibility, given the change in thickness of the W wall and the setting of stones outside the SW corner, that the whole W side has been rebuilt.

This building does not appear to have been constructed in the 1830s, and it seems likely that it was occupied at some time by cottar Rachel Macrimmon (b.1832-d.1914), noted by Lawson as living between ‘Nos. 11 and 12’ (1993, 27). It is annotated as a barn on Sharbau’s map of 1858 (SAS Mss 158).

Visited by RCAHMS (GFG, AM, JM) August 2014.

RCAHMS surveyed Blackhouse P (NF19 NW 21.49), Village Bay, St Kilda on 28 August 2014 with plane-table and alidade at a scale of 1:100. The resultant plan was redrawn in vector graphics software.