General view of farmstead from shore.

Description General view of farmstead from shore.

Date 22/5/1903

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

Catalogue Number IN 935

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 746952

Scope and Content Eilean Lieravay, North Uist, Western Isles, from the south-west Eilean Lieravay, one of many 'island-annexes' separated from North Uist only at high-water, lies a little west of Lochmaddy pier and is connected to the Stromban peninsula by a massive causeway. The Victorian photographer, Erskine Beveridge, photographed the island c.1897. These squat thatched cottages, which cluster around the shore, are built in the traditional style of the island blackhouse, a type of architecture unique to the Hebrides. Their thick, rounded walls are constructed of local stones and boulders held together without mortar, and only allow small, narrow openings for windows and doors. Low drystone walls surround the out-buildings and the kitchen gardens. Erskine Beveridge (1851-1920) was a writer, antiquarian and linen manufacturer whose private income allowed him to indulge his two main passions, archaeology and photography. He wrote an authoritative book on the archaeology of the area which was published in 1911, and his collection of photographs taken of blackhouse sites is of excellent quality and composition. Beveridge built a house and lived for many years on Vallay, an island connected at low tide to the north coast of the island. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

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