St Kilda, Hirta, Village Bay, Blackhouse V

One of two blackhouses on croft 16, this roofless drystone building stands on the croft at the W end of the township with the lower SSE end fronting the ‘street’. Both the blackhouse and the street in this area are set into what appears to be a borrow pit at a lower level than the surrounding ground.

The building measures only 4.09m from NNW to SSE by up to 2.39m transversely within walls averaging 1.5m in thickness and up to 2m in internal height at the NNW end. The external corners are rounded at the SSE end but not at the NNW end, where the building has been reduced in length. The internal corners are square but only the SSW is well-bonded and it is clear that the building has also been reduced in width by the addition of a 0.75m thick skin against the WSW side-wall, in which there is a niche. The doorway is obliquely set in the centre of the ENE wall and fragments of timber in the SSE jamb indicate the position of the door frame. A blocked window opening is also set in the ENE wall. Turf along the wallhead at the NNW end in particular indicates the edge of the last roof.

Constructed in the 1830s, this blackhouse is shown as two contiguous buildings on a plan of 1858 (SAS Mss 158), by which time it was occupied by Catherine Mackinnon (1820-1889), the widow of Donald Macdonald (1820-1845), and her family (see Lawson 1993, 34). By the early 20th century, the building was used as a byre and storehouse. It was excavated by TA Quine in 1983 (Quine 1983, Quine 1988).

Visited by RCAHMS (GFG, AM, JM) 27 August 2014.

RCAHMS surveyed Blackhouse V (NF09 NE 42), Village Bay, St Kilda on 27 August 2014 with plane-table and alidade at a scale of 1:100. The resultant plan was redrawn in vector graphics software.