Landscape record 1399 - MINGULAY

NL58SE 16 centred on 565 832

For St Columba's chapel and burial-ground, see NL58SE 2. For Crois an t-Suidheachain (NL 566 827), see NL58SE 1.

Mingulay village comprises approximately 30 buildings with associated enclosures, a chapel and a school. Only the chapel and the school-house, both semi-ruinous, are still roofed; the walls of the other buildings stand to various heights up to roof level. The village was depopulated between 1908-11.
Visited by OS May 1965, August 1973; C B Buxton 1981

(Mingulay, village and field-system). The monument comprises the remains of the village at Mingulay Bay and its associated field system. Mingulay was abandoned in 1912 after a human occupation which lasted from at least the Bronze Age, although it first appears (by a recognisable name) in documentary sources in the mid-16th century. Since the start of written records, this has been the main settlement site on the island. The E side of the village is now becoming buried in sand up to 1.5m deep.
The village comprises the remains of around 50 formerly inhabited buildings, the haphazard plan indicating an organic rather than a planned growth. The present appearance is largely a product of the early 19th century, when population on the island expanded markedly. The former dwellings, which are of "southern Hebridean blackhouse" type, with rounded external angles, are relatively compact in size, and in many cases will have performed first as houses and later as barns or byres. Most survive to their modest wallhead height. A few have traces of end chimneys, but most had central hearths. Intermingled with the dwellings is an interlocking pattern of irregular enclosures, for stock management and vegetable growing, and a tortuous network of narrow pathways linking houses. To the S, outside the cluster of buildings which form the village proper and near to the well-built track which leads to the landing place at Aneir, are several further houses and associated buildings, possibly on sites later in date of first use than those in the village.
As well as the domestic buildings, which occupy repeatedly re-used sites, are several older remains. At the heart of the village is an oval burial enclosure around a low mound. This is the site of St Columba's chapel. This is certainly of pre-Reformation date but has no secure early history and shows just a few protruding coursed stones to hint at the presence of a small rectangular foundation. At the S end of the bay an ancient site called Crois an t-Suidheachan (the cross of the sitting place) survives as scattered stones: tradition holds it variously to have been a cross-site or a small religious establishment. Martin Martin (1695) records a site of worship in the form of a stone dedicated to St Christopher, which may be significant given the proximity of this site to the best landing place. Earliest of all are midden deposits which outcrop at various points around the bay and have produced pottery fragments and stone objects possibly of Iron Age date. Inland and uphill from the village are the remains of a field system enclosed by a head-dyke. This shows several generations of reorganisation in the pattern of boundaries within it.
Information from Historic Scotland, scheduling document dated 20 February 1997

Thirty-two roofed buildings, one of which is annotated as a Chapel [NL58SE 2], two partially roofed buildings, six unroofed buildings and an extensive field-system (NL562 837 to NL556 818) are depicted on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Hebrides, Barra etc, Inverness-shire 1880, sheet lxx). Three roofed, thirty-two unroofed buildings and the remains of the field-system are shown on the current edition of the OS 1:10000 map (1989).
Information from RCAHMS (SAH) 19 June 1997

C B Buxton, 1981, The Archaeology of Mingulay Bay, Mingulay, Outer Hebrides, 29-35 (Unpublished document). SWE11894.