Monument record 14995 - Tolsta Chaolais, Uig, Lewis

12. NB 19507 37858
black house and possibly associated outhouse
The remains of a blackhouse at croft number 10 will be partly destroyed by the sewage scheme and have been recorded. The house is a typical blackhouse, 11m long by 6m wide externally, with one internal dividing wall. The walls appear to be of typical earth and dry stone construction, and are 1.2 - 1.5m thick. … the house was inhabited until relatively recently…
A concentration of dressed stone roughly 25m to the east could originally have been some king of outbuilding. A drystone dyke in between the two is modern.
McHardy 2008, 8
Entry abridged MML 25/03/08

Blackhouse
The exact line of the sewage system as it crosses through the blackhouse was marked by the McDowell's surveyor, and then one wall excavated slowly. The other wall looked very disturbed from previous digging and hence not worth excavation or recording. The results show typical construction for a blackhouse, with clay, earth and general detritus being used as a 'core' for a substantial, double skinned, dry-stone wall, around 1.5m thick. This had been built into a hollow probably excavated or enlarged by the builders. This wall was either built into virgin ground or completely destroyed any previous construction. Pottery and a bottle (see photos) found within the earthen wall core shows that the house must have been built some time after early/around the 19th century.
McHardy 2007, 13

Ian McHardy, 2007, An Archaeological Study of Tolsta Chaolais (Unpublished document). SWE41190.