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March 23, 2014 by Amanda Moffet
Have just been reading a Report on the Social Conditions of the People of Lewis (1902) by the Crofters Commission it gives a detailed account of the traditional Lewis blackhouse. Find blackhouses so...Have just been reading a Report on the Social Conditions of the People of Lewis (1902) by the Crofters Commission it gives a detailed account of the traditional Lewis blackhouse. Find blackhouses so interesting:
"The old Lewis house, was, as a rule, an oblong structure, varying in length according to the means and requirements of the occupier. It had one door, but frequently it had no windows. Chimneys did not find favour, as any opening for the escape of smoke tended to reduce the quantity of soot, which was regarded as a valuable manurial product. Accordingly, if there was a hole in the roof to admit light, a pane of glass was fixed into it. It soon had a coating of soot, and admitted little light. All the sunlight in the dwelling was admitted through it and by the doorway when the door happened to be open. The family and the cattle entered by the same door; and the cows’ dung was removed only once a year – in the spring time. If one entered such a house in the month of May, after the crops had been sown and the manure cleared out, he would have to descend a foot of more from the level of the door-step to the floor, thence onward towards the portion occupied by the family, when he would have to step up a foot or so to reach the level of that floor. Later on in the season, the visitor would find that the cow-dung, to which a considerable quantity of sea-ware and earth had been added, was on a level with the door-step. Towards the beginning of spring the manure heap rose considerable above that level, and the visitor would have to get to the top of a plateau, and thereafter descend into the family circle.
When the spring tillage began, the manure was carried away in creels to the arable land, or, if the tenant had a horse and cart, the gable of the house was pulled down, and the cart backed in, loaded and driven away. These operations liberated noxious and poisonous gases from the decomposing mass, which only those accustomed to them from their youth could bear. Even the residents to whom they did not appear offensive sometimes succumbed to the pestilence spread around, for after the spring work was over, “dung fever” not infrequently manifested itself, and claimed its victims.
The walls of this primitive dwelling were generally about five feet thick. They consisted of an outer and an inner wall after the fashion of the old northern brochs; but instead of having an intervening passage as in the case of the brochs, the cavity was filled up with earth. This earth served the purpose of mortar, and prevented the wind from blowing through the open rubble work. The couples and cabers of the roof started from the inner wall, and these in turn were covered with layers of divots and straw. The roof was by no means impervious to rain, which, as it oozed through, became thickened and blackened with soot, and often fell in heavy drops on the inmates. Such of the rain as did not find its way through the roof ran down to the earth forming the centre of the wall and percolated through it to the foundation. The walls were thus kept perpetually damp. The smoke through the open stonework of the inner wall on the one hand, and the rain from the roof on the other, fertilised the earth forming the centre, with the result that it produced a luxuriant crop of green grass. This afforded a tempting bit to a hungry cow or sheep; and it was no uncommon thing to see a quadruped climb up to the sort of balcony at the base of the roof of the older houses and walk along the same, greedily devouring the grass before it.
The roof with all the soot adhering was stripped to the cabers, and the whole mass used as manure, or as a form of top-dressing. Its fertilising properties were considered valuable, and certainly the land to which this material was applied yielded good crops for the soil of Lewis. The process, however, had its disadvantages, for on every occasion on which the old divots forming part of the thatch were used for manure, a new supply had to be got from the hillside. This was highly detrimental to the grazing, large strips of the surface being annually filched, and requiring several years before a new crop of grass or heather appeared. The earth added to the manure during the season was also taken from hillside. In this case all the earth was frequently removed and nothing but the bare stones left. Grass did not grow there again. this is the Lewis equivalent to the Shetland “scalping” – a process which has proved highly injurious to Shetland grazings and which most Shetland landowners have endeavoured to suppress.
It should be added that generally the barn was built against the back wall of the dwelling-house; and frequently a member of the family on getting married hived off from the parental roof, erected a new dwelling against the old one, and settle down there. In this way there might be two or three dwelling-houses built close against each other, adding to the congestion in the township and making sanitation more and more difficult."
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