Monument record 2261 - HARRIS, RODEL HOTEL

Listing Description

Buildings of various dates, now (1994) all forming part of Rodel Hotel. Nucleus is the former MacLeod mansion, a tall gabled range, 2 storeys with attic, possibly altered in the course of the various building works carried out by MacLeod of Harris in the 1780's. Buildings mostly harled and slate-roofed, windows mostly sashes; additions to north in corrugated iron.
TALL RANGE has 2-bay gable facing Rodel Harbour, asymmetrically-placed openings on (west) front wall (ie elevation does not divide into conventional bay divisions; 8-pane glazing pattern except at wall-head attic dormers); entrance in a 2-storey piend-roofed square projection, possibly an addition of circa 1840, judging by fenestration (lying-panes, timber-mullioned bipartite at first floor). At rear, steel fire escape to swept-roofed attic doorway which has the appearance of a loft door on an industrial building. Skews; ashlar end stacks.
GABLED LOW RANGE, parallel, at rear, and longer, may equally date from the 1780's, possibly coach house/stables; alternatively, it had some industrial purpose originally; 4 end/ridge stacks; adjoining range to rear, at south end, forming L-plan and fronting harbour, is roofless (1994). Also fronting harbour, linked at NW corner of tall range is a piend-roofed low, MID-19TH CENTURY WING; 4 bays - spaced: 3 with centre door, flanking canted window left, bipartite right, outer stacks; plus single-window linking bay, right, like an afterthought to the original design (though roof slates all look uniform suggesting all one build); steps to door, horizontal glazing pattern (of different type to that on tall block). To north, and adjoining the last-mentioned range, gabled,
corrugated-iron ranges with original glazing. Another low harled 19th century range is set close to north gable of tall range. Rubble-walled extensive garden enclosure to north; driveway/forecourt quayed at south at harbour, rubble walls and gatepiers at pier.

Statement of Special Interest

Said to have formerly been used as a shooting lodge for the Earl of Dunmore, who acquired Harris in 1834; some of the alteration works here may date from about then, and the implication would be that industry at Rodel on any meaningful scale had already ended.
For the early development work at Rodel see John Knox, THE HIGHLANDS AND HEBRIDES IN 1786 p158 ff.

The former hotel complex is currently being redeveloped as a private residence with the aim of retaining the original 18th century house & garden and the demolition of the of the late 1990's hotel re-development.
K.Murphy (Archaeologist CnES) Feb 2018

Headland Archaeology Ltd, Rodel House, Harris (Unpublished document). SWE41276.

Uist Archaeology Ltd, Rodel House, Harris (Unpublished document). SWE41277.