General view showing black houses

Description General view showing black houses

Date 17/8/1904

Collection Papers of Erskine Beveridge, antiquarian, Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland

Catalogue Number SC 746924

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of IN 943

Scope and Content Hougharry, North Uist, Western Isles Hougharry, a crofting township of traditional island blackhouses, lies on the edge of a wide sandy bay in the north-western corner of North Uist. The Victorian photographer, Erskine Beveridge, photographed the village c.1897, providing a unique photographic record of a style of architecture unique to the Hebrides. The village, a cluster of low, squat buildings, seems to rise out of the landscape. The houses, dating from the early 19th century, have thick stone walls, constructed of local stone and boulders and held together without mortar. They are hip-ended, with a broad ledge at the wall-head which extends round the house, and the roofs are of thatch, secured by a heavy ropes which stretch across the roof. Each house has a short chimney which emerges from the thatch roof ridge. In the late 1890s, the population of the island was around 4,000, mainly distributed in crofting communities. The land was used for raising cattle, with each croft keeping a few cows and grazing beef cattle on common ground for export, much of this stock going to Glasgow. Horses were kept, mainly for ploughing and working on the land, and the main crops grown were cereals and potatoes. Most crofters also kept a boat for fishing. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/746924

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap