St Kilda, Hirta, Village Bay, Cleits 144-5

NF19NW 21.21 10042 99532

(Cleit 144 NF 10039 99537; Cleit 145 NF 10042 99532)

These two drystone buildings, which lie outside the head dyke close to Tobar Childa, stand end to end on a sloping NW-SE axis, both having entrances near the centres of their SW side-walls. While both buildings appear superficially to be ordinary cleitean, they incorporate fragments of an earlier cellular structure.

Cleit 144, the upper of the two adjacent buildings, forms part of an enclosure at its N end, and, probably to prevent animals scrambling over the cleit into the enclosure, walls were added on the W and SE sides.

At its maximum extent the slab-lintelled interior of the building itself is 5.01m long, 1.52m wide (in the SE half), and 1.45m high. At the S end there is a small blocked opening 0.33m square; its lintel is 0.46m and 0.91m respectively above the corresponding floor-levels in 144 and 145, the wall at this point being 0.7m thick.

Cleit 145 has a battered wall-face and is buttressed at the SE corner. On the S side of the doorway there is a roughly circular setting of stones, possibly the remains of a cell about 1.07m in diameter. The main structure is 4.57m long internally, 1.42m wide, and the lintelled roof is 1.52m above floor-level. The corbelling is more pronounced on the E side, but at the NE corner the wall is almost vertical to a height of 1.22m. It abuts the N end-wall which is noticeably square, whereas the W side-wall is mutually bonded from the lowest courses. In the N end-wall there is an aperture 0.38m high and 0.18m above the floor but below the existing floor-level of its neighbour, Cleit 144.

G P Stell and M Harman 1988.

NF 101 991 (centre) As part of the Management Agreement with Historic Scotland, the monuments within Village Bay were recorded and monitored, and certain cleits, dykes and enclosures were repaired in 2001 under supervision by members of the two volunteer work parties. Detailed work included the completion of the identification of around 300 cleits for active management, and the production of a report on cleit preservation, as well as rapid assessments of coastal erosion and the deposition of builders' debris within some of the roofless structures along the village street.

Report to be deposited in the NMRS.

NF 101 991 (centre) As part of the Management Agreement with Historic Scotland, the monuments within Village Bay were recorded and monitored, and certain cleits, dykes, drains and enclosures were repaired under supervision by members of the volunteer work parties which went out to St Kilda in 2002.

A photographic survey of the coastline in Village Bay was carried out and compared to images taken in 1999. The survey indicated erosion along the NE side of the bay. Two sherds of hand-made pottery were recovered and a layer of burning noted in an exposed section.

The annual monitoring of cleits across the island was carried out and the photographic survey of them continued.

Report to be deposited in the NMRS.

Sponsors: HS, NTS.

S Bain 2002