Listed Building: Tong Farmhouse, former Parish Manse including gatepiers (11189)

Dated 1808. Substantial 2-storey and attic, 3-bay, rectangular-plan former Parish Church manse built on site of 1760 manse overlooking Sands of Tong toward Stornoway. Later piend roofed porch possibly by Charles Howitt 1852. Altered to farmhouse 1855, interior renovated and fireplaces removed 1950s. Incorporating nepus gable and full-width lean-to outshot at rear. Harled with deep-set openings. FURTHER DESCRIPTION: symmetrical principal elevation to SW with boarded timber door and lionhead brass doorknocker on right return of porch, small flat roofed extension to left return; 2 small piended dormer windows rising almost from wallhead and flanking small cast iron centre rooflight. Nepus gable to centre of rear (NE entrance and farmyard) elevation over 1st floor window, both windows positioned slightly left of centre, ground floor obscured by later lean-to outshot. INTERIOR: some fine early interior detail retained including moulded cornices, 6-panelled architraved doors and panelled reveals. Sitting room with segmentally-arched recess incorporating fluted timber pilasters and key detail, timber staircase with plain timber balusters, flag floor to porch and concrete floors elsewhere at ground. Largely 4-pane glazing pattern in timber sash and case windows. Easdale slates. Harled stacks with thackstanes and simple clay cans. GATEPIERS: harled, pyramidally-coped square section gatepiers to. Statement of Special Interest Tong Farmhouse is a rare example of an early manse which retains much of its original character. One of very few such sizeable structures on the Isle of Lewis, and occupying an exposed site overlooking the bay, it was possibly designed and built by John Lobban, master mason of Stornoway, and the piend roofed porch may have been erected by Charles Howitt in 1852. The New Statistical Account of 1833 states that the 'present Manse [was] built 25 years ago during Mr Mackenzie¿s incumbency (1789-1815). This evidence, together with the reported existence of an 1808 datestone over the main door (not seen 2006), points conclusively to an 1808 building date. The New Statistical Account continues 'the Glebe is 8 acres in extent with a little rugged, wet, deep mossy moor. '.. The present Glebe at Tong was designated on the 5th day of October 1759'. An undressed lintel over the NE door is roughly incised with the date '1738', presumably this has been re-used from an earlier building. The parish church manse and glebe were moved to Sandwick in 1855, and at that time the Tong property became a farm, with a small U-plan steading erected immediately to the rear of the house. The 1861 census lists Alex Grant as Tenant, and by 1871 the farm had been extended to 100 acres. Alex Grant was also involved in the fishing industry, he owned and skippered an 18' keel vessel, called the 'Annie Maggie'. During 1919 Tong Farm, together with the farms at Coll and Gress, was involved in the so-called 'land grab' by landless ex-servicemen. Lord Leverhulme did not regard Tong, a relatively small farm, as of such significance to his improvement plans as those other farms, and the raiders were granted crofting land almost immediately. The farm itself was sold into private ownership soon after, in 1923, and remains in the same family today (2006).