Monument record 503 - ST KILDA VILLAGE, CLEIT 32

NF19NW 21.12 1026 9936.

This drystone building, which does not conform to the plan of a true cleit, lies to the W of the Abhainn Ilishgil and stands on a steep slope immediately below an old terraced track which runs towards the area
of the old village.
The structure is roughly pear-shaped on plan, the apex being at the N end, where the building is set in to the scarp of the old track. At its greatest extent the interior measures 3.81m by 2.44m, and because the walls are corbelled the corresponding clear span at the wall-head is 1.93m. The N and S ends may have had superimposed gables. A lintelled doorway forms an angled passage through the S end of the E side-wall. Towards the N end of the W side-wall there is a blocked low-level and lintelled opening 0.36m wide and 0.56m above present floor-level. At this point the external wall-face is inset between two short projecting sections of corbelled walling, which represent the remains of a cell entered from within the main structure. There appears to be a similar blocked aperture at the S end of the W wall but with no obvious traces of an associated cell.
In photograhs of 1886 this building is shown thatched, and a view taken in 1957 shows a ridge-pole between the two later gables. At some date after 1886 the door lintel was replaced by a large timber baulk which was in turn replaced by a stone lintel in the mid-1970s. Both these phases of alterations involved much reconstruction of the outer wall-face around the doorway.
G P Stell and M Harman 1988.

G P and M Stell and Harman, 1988, Buildings of St Kilda, 43, no. 12 (Bibliographic reference). SWE8255.