Description

Perhaps early 19th century and may have been an inn or ferryman's house. Single-storey, three wide bays, Skye-type thatched cottage. Slightly battered rubble-built walls with curved angles. Central door on east front behind harled lean-to porch. Two windows in west wall and single window in short south wall. Single end and off-centre axial chimney stacks. Marram thatch roof secured with ropes and stone weights.

Interior (seen in 1985): boarded ceilings; stone slabs laid over inner corners to support roof timbers.

In accordance with Section 1 (4A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) (Scotland) Act 1997 the following are excluded from the listing: the porch attached to the east elevation.

Statement of Interest

The previous listed building record, written in 1985, states that the building may have formerly been an inn or ferryman's house for the principal ferry route from South Uist to Benbecula. However, it is not marked as such on the 1st Edition Ordnance Survey map (surveyed 1878).

These vernacular buildings, once prolific across Na h-Eileanan Siar, are now extremely rare. 99 Carnan continues to show regional traditional building methods and materials. Notable features include the battered rubble walls and a marram thatched roof with turf underlay, secured with ropes and stone weights.

The thatch is missing in places but overall enough of the historic fabric and form survives to show that it is characteristic of 19th century Na h-Eileanan Siar vernacular building traditions. It is one of only 54 buildings or groups of buildings in Na h-Eileanan Siar that are known to retain a thatched roof, and is among a very small number of surviving thatched buildings across Scotland. A Survey of Thatched Buildings in Scotland, published in 2016 by the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB), found there were only around 200 buildings of this type remaining, most of which are found in small rural communities. Thatched buildings are often traditionally built, showing distinctive local and regional building methods and materials. Those that survive are important in helping us understand these traditional skills and an earlier way of life.

In accordance with Section 1 (4A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) (Scotland) Act 1997 the following are excluded from the listing: the porch attached to the east elevation.

Statutory address and listed building record revised in 2021 as part of the Thatched Buildings Listing Review. Previously listed as '99 Carnan'.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17853818

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire: North and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Suffolk: West: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Buildings of England)
• 
  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of History Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas