Monument record 810 - ST KILDA VILLAGE

NF19NW 15 9101 995.

See also NF19NW 21 NF 101 993 St Kilda village

(Area: NF 101995) According to Macaulay in 1764 (K Macaulay 1764), the medieval village of St Kilda comprised houses built in two rows...facing one another with a tolerable causeway in the middle...called the Street'. This was 1/4 mile from the sea (ie. twice the distance of the 1830-60 village). He adds that 'Tobar Childa (NF19NW 13) was 'near the heart of the village'.
Both Williamson (K Williamson and J M Boyd 1963) and Macgregor (D R Macgregor 1960) are of the opinion that the site of the (? 1400-1830) village extended from Tobar Childa in a SE direction to the factor's house, following the line of a natural embankment which may well be Macaulay's 'causeway'. Macgregor notes 'a significant number of vestiges of circular middens and ash-pits' along this line, and remarks on the situation being favoured by both sun and shelter.
Both agree that Tobar Childa was the probable nucleus of the village and Williamson points out that the group of 'Cleitean' here represents all that is left of the old village, and that many of these structures have features which indicate that they were built in the first place as dwellings.
K Macaulay 1764; K Williamson and J M Boyd 1960 and 1963; D R Macgregor 1960.

That the pre-1830 settlements probably existed in the area described by the foregoing authorities to the north of the present village, is not disputed; but three major points arise out of this:
(1) Only three or four possible medieval or 'beehive' type dwellings were noted (in addition to Calum Mor House - NF19NW 2), and these have been re-used/re-built as cleits.
(2) No early black-house structure of Martin & Macaulay's description seems to survive - and this village may just have been superseded, in situ, by the 1834 'improved black-houses'.
(3) The possibility of hut circles existing near Tobar Childa, together with a field-stystem, indicates a pre- historic settlement (see NF09NE 9).
The probable head-dyke (mainly a baulk) containing the 17/18th centuries field plots, was also located running erratically from the present wall near the site of Tobar a' Chleirich at a distance of c.15-20m from the wall, to a point above Tobar Childa at a distance of c.100m where the baulk (2-3m high) changes to a turf-covered boulder wall no more than 0.2m high. It is last seen turning southwards towards the modern wall some 200m W of Tobar Childa. No traces of cultivation lie outside this bank (excepting the enclosures on An Lag); but the plots exist for a short way inside the 1830 wall, gradually being superseded by the field strip system of that and later date.
The natural embankment N of the E end of the village, seems to erratic and not convincing enough to be Macaulay's "causeway" of the old village.
Contrary to Williamson's suggestion that the cleits near Tobar Childa were originally dwellings, only about three of these, and obviously reconstructed on earlier foundations, can be said to possibly agree with this theory - the narrowness of the internal area, and the special 'open' construction of the walls, is not conductive to habitation. Visited by OS (J L D) 7 August 1967.

K Macaulay, 1764, The History of St Kilda, 101 (Bibliographic reference). SWE12859.

D R Macgregor, 1960, Scot Stud, 1-48 plan (Bibliographic reference). SWE4421.

K and J M Williamson and Boyd, 1960, St Kilda Summer, 54-66 plans (Bibliographic reference). SWE12816.

K and J M Williamson and Boyd, 1963, A Mosaic of Islands, 133 (Bibliographic reference). SWE11218.