Description

Late 19^th or early 20^th century, Skye-type thatched crofthouse (renovated for use as a holiday cottage around 1998), single-storey, three-bay east front with central entrance. Single window in centre of west wall. Rubble-built, with squared angles. End chimney stacks. Marram thatched roof secured with ropes and stone weights.

Statement of Interest

These vernacular buildings, once prolific across Na h-Eileanan Siar, are now extremely rare. Taigh Curstaig continues to show regional traditional building methods and materials and retains a significant proportion of its historic fabric and footprint, vernacular form and character. Notable features include the thick rubble walls and a marram thatched roof secured with ropes and stone weights.

It is one of only 54 buildings or groups of buildings in Na h-Eileanan Siar that are known to retain an intact 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.

Statutory address and listed building record revised in 2021 as part of the Thatched Buildings Listing Review. Previously listed as 'Benbecula, 1 Kyles Flodda'.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17853765

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

• 
  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of Historic Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas
• 
  Wiltshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Staffordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Building Small Projects (New Best of Fine Woodworking)
• 
  Suffolk: East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)