NB3149 : A blackhouse living room/kitchen
taken 8 years ago, near to Arnol, Isle of Lewis And Harris, Na h-Eileanan an Iar, Scotland
A blackhouse, restored and furnished as it would have been when in use, with attached barn, byre and stackyard. The main living part consisted of two rooms, with dirt or stone floors. One was a kitchen/living room, with furniture, a box-bed, and a central peat fire used for cooking and heating. There was no chimney - smoke dispersed through the thatched roof. Box-beds, screened with cloth, were where the occupants slept. Opposite is a blackhouse base, and a white house, the successor to and improvement of the blackhouse, as it would have been when in use in the 1920s. Often, and it shows up very well on Google Earth, as well as in the landscape, the white house has now been succeeded by a modern house. The museum is a Historic Scotland/Alba Aosmhor property.