Harris, 9a Quidnish

Rare survival of low, 3-bay, rectangular-plan blackhouse altered to accommodate 1960s corrugated roofing and porch outshot incorporating bathroom but retaining recognisable traditional form of slightly battered walls and rounded angles. Sited on steeply falling ground overlooking Loch Fionnsabhagh in Bays of Harris, and abutting rocky outcrop. Thinly rendered and whitewashed thick rubble walls with rounded angles and very deeply set small window openings.

No 9A Cuidinish is a rare survival of a once ubiquitous type. It is the only example of a 19th century Harris type blackhouse in anything like its original form along the whole length of the Golden Road, so-called owing to the enormous cost of construction, and described by Shaw Grant as 'a tortuous switchback substandard track winding like a roller coaster round the Bays of Harris'. Prior to the building of this road in 1897, the only form of transport was by sea. The cottage would originally have been a dry stone structure comprising 2 boulder walls with earth and gravel central core, the walls have now been pointed. The roof, formerly thatched with straw or possibly marram grass, has been covered with corrugated iron splayed at the base to cover the thick wallhead or 'tobhta'. The thatch would have ended at the inside wall face. (Historic Scotland)