Monument record 826 - ST KILDA VILLAGE, CLEIT 155

Summary

Cleit

Location

Grid reference NF 10060 99500 (point)
Map sheet NF19NW
Island Hirta, St Kilda
Parish HARRIS, Western Isles

Map

Type and Period (1)

Full Description

NF19SW 21.22 1006 9950.

The head dyke abuts this small drystone structure which also possesses a small cell at the N end. Its position and form thus indicate that it was built before the late 1830s, and it was in this cleit that the only surviving cleit door was found.
Measuring 3.91m in length by 0.91m internally, with a lintelled roof 1.45m above floor-level, the main building is aligned roughly N-S. Unusually, the entrance is in a corner position at he N end of the W side-wall. Externally, the walls are battered and made up of relatively small stones; inside, the masonry consists of fairly large boulders, and the walls are slightly corbelled. The rounded S end traverses the line of the head dyke which abuts the flanking walls.
The W side-wall continues northwards to form a small subcircular cell which measures 1.42m by 0.99m transversely, its corbelled roof surviving to a height of 1.04m. Beside and above the cleit entrance, 0.81m above the cleit floor, there is a small opening into the cell; the aperture is 0.46m high and 0.76m deep. The cell has partly collapsed on the E side where there may be another entrance or an aumbry.
A wall, which forms part of a higher-level enclosure, appears to be bonded into the cleit immediately N of the doorway, and a ruined wall, apparently partly dismantled, adjoins the E side of the cell.
G P Stell and M Harman 1988.


G P and M Stell and Harman, 1988, Buildings of St Kilda, 48, no. 22 (Bibliographic reference). SWE8255.

Sources/Archives (1)

  • --- Bibliographic reference: G P and M Stell and Harman. 1988. Buildings of St Kilda. 48, no. 22.

Finds (1)

Protected Status/Designation

Related Monuments/Buildings (1)

Related Events/Activities (0)

Record last edited

Jul 28 2005 2:24PM

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