Monument record 9236 - MY80 MINGULAY

MY80 (NL56548300) Blackhouse.
Location: Coastal bench.
Description: This is John Sinclair's house (Buxton 1995), an improved rectangular drystone-built blackhouse (a), 13 x 6 m, with integral fireplaces and chimney stacks built into each gable end east and west and a small subrectangular barn (b), 4.5 x 3.5 m, butted to the east gable wall. Oddly the fireplace backs are not uniform in shape being square-backed in the west wall and semicircular in the east. Another subrectangular barn (c), 5.9 x 4.5 m, with east-facing doorway, is located 5 m further to the east. The house is located south from the village by the side of the road after it has passed over the ridge that forms the southern edge to Mingulay Bay and dropped down again on the approach to the schoolhouse. It is therefore out of sight from the village area and its front door and windows face towards the school 100m to the south. A photograph of 1905, in the posession of the Barra Historical Society, shows the windows glazed and the roof thatched, but the side barn appears to be in a dilapidated condition. Buxton (1995) suggests that Sinclair built his house in 1868 when he moved from Berneray, since it does not appear on a map of 1861-63. In his construction he managed to procure several blocks of quarried and dressed stone and his walls appear thinner, with sharp angled corners in keeping with more modern fashion. Both barns have blocks of quarry-drilled stone in their fabric. A subrectangular, 25 x 13 m, enclosure (d) to the north is butted to the house walls.
Brannigan and Foster 2000, 102-103

Keith Branigan & Patrick Foster, 2000, From Barra to Berneray: Archaeological Survey and Excavation in the Southern Isles ... (Bibliographic reference). SWE41033.