Lewis Blackhouses

As we had been promised, the sun shone brightly today and we visited several places today - which gave rise to a real problem of which photo to pick.

In the morning we had coffee with Frank Rennie, Professor of Sustainable Rural Development at Highlands and Islands University, Stornoway. I have followed Frank's Journal for some time and it was great to chat about so many things we shared in common as well as Blip. It was another example of how great a community Blip really is.

After lunch we visited the Blackhouse Village out on the west coast. This is a restored village with a museum which tells the story of these traditional style houses.

The buildings were generally built with double wall dry-stone walls packed with earth and wooden rafters covered with a thatch of turf with cereal straw or reed. The floor was generally flagstones or packed earth and there was a central hearth for the fire. There was no chimney for the smoke to escape through. Instead the smoke made its way through the roof.
The blackhouse was used to accommodate livestock as well as people. People lived at one end and the animals lived at the other with a partition between them.

This village is right next to the Atlantic and the houses needed to be built in such a way as to withstand the extreme weather which can come in from the sea.

As I said, so many photos today. Views of the Croft we are living on (and the view from it), Lews Castle (the grounds of which is where UHI is based), Stornoway and some views of Hebridean countryside as well as some flowers. See them 0n my Flikr set.