[MR] More on Blackhouses

Garth Groff via Atlantia atlantia at seahorse.atlantia.sca.org
Wed Oct 26 02:12:25 PDT 2016


Noble Friends, Especially Fellow Scots,

Yesterday I posted a short BBC piece on re-thatching a 19th century 
blackhouse in Scotland. Not finding anything else to share this morning, 
I thought to return to this topic for your edification and amusement.

To recap, a blackhouse is/was a type of Scottish peasant dwelling made 
of stone with a thatched roof. The structures rarely had windows or 
chimneys. Without any source of natural light save the door, and smoke 
from the peat fires having no escape, the interior was both dark and 
coated with soot from whence the name "blackhouse" likely came. The 
interior was divided with a partition (sometimes just a fence) with 
human habitation in one end and livestock in the other. Nearly all the 
surviving blackhouses in Scotland date to the 18th or 19th century. Such 
crude dwellings are likely to have been in use much earlier, including 
during our SCA period of interest, but are not documented and none still 
exist. Similar houses are also found in Ireland.

While the blackhouse was a very rude dwelling, they were well adapted to 
the conditions in the Hebrides and other parts of Scotland. Being low 
and usually with rounded roofs, they stood well against the fierce 
Atlantic winds. The animals' body heat helped keep the human inhabitants 
warm. Being entirely made from local materials, they were easy to build 
and maintain. In the 19th century, landlords forced their tenants on the 
very isolated island of St. Kilda to move from their blackhouses into 
more modern dwellings, but the new houses were totally inadequate, and 
some of the inhabitants snuck back to the warmer and drier blackhouses. 
You can read an interesting illustrated piece on St. Kilda and its 
houses at 
http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20161019-the-eeriest-island-in-the-world .

Wikipedia offers a brief article on blackhouses with photos of several 
preserved examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackhouse .

At Gearrannan on the Isle of Lewis there is a "village" of blackhouses 
which are run as tourist accommodations. While they are modernized and 
tarted up (hopefully with modern plumbing!), the "village" is quite 
interesting and the photos are charming: http://www.gearrannan.com .

If I don't forget (getting old is no fun), I will comment on Scottish 
tower houses and bastle houses soon. Scottish tower houses, were 
generally more comfortable abodes, being essentially small castles. Just 
thing to dream of for Scadians.

Yours Aye,


Lord Mungo Napier, That Crazy Scot




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