Photos and the City

Category: Travel

Norse Mill and Kiln

Close to Shawbost, there is a hidden but very special sight, a Norse mill and kiln, just a few steps from a parking spot.

Overlooking Loch Roinavat you will find a renovated pair of thatched buildings used in past times to process barley grain. The Corn Mill and kiln were in use right up till the 1930s.

The Mill and Kiln were restored and rebuilt in the late 1960s and would be working today. The Kiln, the first one on the right side, is a drying room with a raised stone floor and a fire pit underneath to prepare the corn for milling. The Mill was powered by the stream running to the loch and had a mill laid running through the middle of the building to drive the paddles and mill wheel.

Once upon a time, Lewis houses about 200 of this kind of mills.

Looking inside the mill. These two buildings give us another glimpse of how life used to be in Lewis.

And as a bit of a contrast, a modern time windmill:

07/03/2023
Gearrannan Blackhouse Village

The Gearrannan Blackhouse village was definitely high on my must-visit list and after seeing the blackhouses in Arnol, I wanted more and spent the rest of the day at the Gearrannan village near Carloway.

This settlement of blackhouses facing the Atlantic gives us an impression of how life was in Lewis. “Modern life” is compared to the Iron Age settlement at the nearby Dun Carloway. Gearrannan dates back to the 17th century—the houses we see today date back to the late 1800s.

Life was hard, people had to go far away to make ends meet. While men travelled up to Virginia for the whaling season, the women…

In May 1920, as part of an annual cycle, seven teams of three women from the village left for Stornoway to process fish. They then followed the herring to the east coast of Scotland then down to eastern England, only returning home at the end of the season. (Undiscovered Scotland)

Life in the village only changed slowly. Inside the museum blackhouse, we see a bedroom and a lounge dating from the mid-1900s.

In Gearrannan, oil lamps were replaced by electricity from 1952, and in the 1960s piped water arrived in the village, though it still had to be fetched from outside taps. This brought to an end the tradition of communal washing of heavier laundry in the loch, with water heated over open fires on the shore. And from 1965 a daily milk delivery started, ending the need to keep a cow and grow the crops to feed it. (Undiscovered Scotland)

We find a loom at the end of the house, including some weaving demonstration.

By the 1970s most had left for easier accommodations nearby, and only five residents had remained in Gearrannan. But the very last resident then left in 1974 and Gearrannan became a ghost village of the past!

Lucky for us the Urras nan Gearrannan (the Garenin Trust) has been restoring the derelict blackhouses and surrounding areas since 1989 to recreate an authentic settlement with modern facilities.

There is a shop and café for visitors and villagers and you could even stay in the village. Some of the blackhouses are available as holiday lets sleeping between 2 to 16 people and there is also a hostel.

It must be lovely to be awakened by the waves and enjoy the village before the day visitors arrive and after they leave.

After a lovely lunch provided by the café, I continued exploring the village. Walked down to the beach and up the hill. The view from the hill over the village was probably my favourite one.

Peeking into one of the guesthouses.

21/02/2023
The Arnol Blackhouse

It was time to visit the restored Arnol Blackhouse finally. Or taigh-dubh as a blackhouse is called in Gaelic.

Right next to the blackhouse is a little information centre and tiny shop, telling more about the blackhouse and the people who used to life there. I really enjoyed seeing this overview of the house.

A blackhouse usually comprised a long narrow building, often with one or more additional buildings laid parallel to it and sharing a common wall. The walls were made from an inner and outer layer of unmortared stones, the gap between them filled with peat and earth. The roof would be based on a wooden frame, resting on the inner stone walls, giving the very characteristic wall-ledge. (Undiscovered Scotland)

The blackhouse didn´t have a chimney, the smoke of the peat fire would find its way out through the thatches and also helped keep insects at bay.

The smoked thatch was also an excellent fertiliser and was used on the fields after it was stripped down and renewed every year.

The animals would be on one side of the house with earth flooring, without any flagged floors like in the living areas. The whole design of the blackhouses was based on the housing we know from Skara Brae 5000 years ago, but the houses themselves were built more recently. This specific at Arnol No 42 was built in 1875.

And in 1960 there were still nine blackhouses in use in Arnol: while the group now restored as the blackhouse village at Gearrannan, further along the coast, was only abandoned in 1974. (Undiscovered Scotland)

The Arnol Blackhouse at No 42 gives a good insight on how living in a blackhouse might have been, even if it is a slightly “cleaned up” version. The thatched roof is built differently and wallpaper had been removed. But one still smells the smoke of the peat fire and this smell lingers in the clothes forever.

On the other side of the road there is not only a “White House” included in your visit (see next blog post) but also the remains of other blackhouses, which had a bit different layouts.

View back to the Blackhouse at No 42.

14/02/2023