St Kilda wee guide


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St Kilda Houses

Blackhouses

In the 1830s the people on St Kilda built a new village for themselves - they worked hard for 2 years to build a house for each family along a new street - 24 in total. We now call these houses 'blackhouses'. Blackhouses have very thick walls to keep the inside warm, the roof would have been straw or heather thatch - usually there were no windows or chimney. In the winter the cows lived in one half and the people in the other – it would have been cosy and quiet but dark, smoky and smelly. At this time a lot of people in Scotland used to live in houses like these.
The blackhouses had rounded ends and these faced Village Bay with the doors and windows facing away from the sea and the wind..

Whitehouses

In 1860 there was a terrible storm which ripped the roofs off the houses on St Kilda. It was decided to build new modern homes. This time a stonemason was sent to help build the 16 new houses. Each new house had 2 windows and a tin roof; some of the houses were painted white on the outside. They faced the sea and were built in between the old blackhouses, which were then used as stores and for the cows (who weren't allowed inside the new houses!). After the people left in 1930 the roofs were gradually blown off by the wind.
The National Trust for Scotland has re-roofed houses 1 - 6. Work parties and researchers now use them to sleep & cook in, and to store tools.


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