Monument record 820 - ST KILDA VILLAGE, BLACKHOUSE K

NF19NW 21.08 1008 9935.

Standing immediately W of House 9, the roofless remains of this house occupy the NE angle at the junction of the street and the path to the burial-ground. It was probably erected by Calum MacDonald soon after his marriage in 1834 to Betty Scott from Lochinver. It can be identified as 'Betty Scott's cottage' surveyed in the 1860's by Captain Thomas. Its successor, House 9, continued to be inhabited by the MacDonald family.
The building measures internally 5.94m from N to S by 3.2m transversely within side- and end-walls up to 1.37m and 1.88m thick respectively.
The external angles are rounded except at the NW angle, where there is evidence of rebuilding; the SE angle also appears to have been reconstructed, probably in order to accommodate House 9 on the street-line. The drystone walls, which are battered externally and have vertical inner faces, are only 0.61m high at the N end where the building is set in to the slope. The building has been hip-roofed, and there is no evidence of later superimposed gables. There is a doorway, which has an angled, lintelled entrance-passage, towards the S end of the E side-wall, and to the N of it is a window-embrasure. Inside, the S angles are rounded, but the inner face of the N end-wall is clearly an insertion, not being bonded at the angles. Just below the window sill there is a projecting iron pin, and the inner face of the N end-wall incorporates part of a brick.
Outside, a slabstone path and steps ascend the narrow intervening space between Black House K and House 9.
G P Stell and M Harman 1988.

G P and M Stell and Harman, 1988, Buildings of St Kilda, 41, no. 8 (Bibliographic reference). SWE8255.