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The natural environment has significantly shaped architecture and human settlement, with towns and smaller settlements in the Outer Hebrides all close to the sea. The wet and windy climate is harsh on buildings and the architecture reflects this. This Architectural Trail has selected 29 notable places from the Butt of Lewis to Barra, with sites ranging in age from the Iron Age to the present.
This trail is a mixture of public and private sites, historic and modern. These buildings show the skills and desires of island designers and craftsmen, mostly using local stone, sand and gravel. Other building materials were imported, since there is little timber or clay for building use. The importance of religion is reflected in some of the buildings chosen, while new buildings show the confidence Islanders have in reflecting their changing needs and aspirations.
As a result of the history of land ownership, very few houses predate 1880. The traditional dry-stone walled blackhouses, built in the North Atlantic longhouse tradition, gave way to newer White-houses with rendered stonewalls and a few standard layouts. Modern private homes now span a range of building materials, both local and imported, and feature unique and creative architectural design.
Acclaimed photographer John Maher has photographed the buildings, capturing the beauty of the islands’ variety of architecture.
Click on the image to download the trail leaflet.
To celebrate the RIAS Festival of Architecture, Western Isles Architects Group and An Lanntair teamed up to create this“Building our Islands” project to increase awareness of architecture in the Outer Hebrides. For more information on The Building our Islands project click here.
Number of results: 29
, currently showing 1 to 18.
Stornoway, Isle of Lewis
Built in 1847-51 in the Neo-Gothic style popular in the Victorian era by Sir James Matheson and substantially altered by Lord Leverhulme. After being used as a school, it re-opened in 2016.
Isle of Lewis
A broch is an iron-aged drystone hollow-walled structure found only in Scotland. Dun Carloway, was likely built in 1st Century AD.
Isle of Lewis
Inspired by the traditional Hebridean summer dwellings or ‘airidhs’. The larch-clad house is both colourful and sculptural with dramatic views over the Harris hills. (Private residence: not open to the public).
Isle of Harris
Amhuinnsuidhe Castle was built in 1865 in the Scottish Baronial style by the architect David Bryce and the 7th Earl of Dunmore. Access by prior arrangement only.
Isle of Harris
Designed by John R. Coleman Architects, it occupies a strategic position in Tarbert, visible to everyone arriving there.
Scalpay, Isle of Harris
Scalpay Bridge opened in 1997 and was designed by Halcrow Crouch. It replaced a bow loaded ferry as Scalpay’s link to Harris.
Isle of Harris
Translated from Gaelic, Talla na Mara means the Centre by the sea. Overlooking Niseabost beach, the Centre boasts one of the most photographed locations in the Outer Hebrides.
Isle of Harris
Inspired by Scottish coastal Iron Age buildings. Designed by Stuart Bagshaw (Private residence, please view from the road)
Isle of Harris
A stone building reminiscent of a Blackhouse, designed by Stuart Bagshaw in 1999 as an interpretive centre of William MacGillivray, an ornithologist from Harris.
Isle of Harris
Large iron-roofed 18th-century structure, it is thought to have been a store or ‘keeping house’ with two floors and three bays.
Isle of Harris
St. Clement’s earliest sections date to the 15th Century and it is the finest pre-reformation church in the Hebrides. Inside is one of the most ambitious and richly-carved tombs of the time for the Macleod clan chief.
Isle Of Lewis
Built in 1847-51 in the Neo-Gothic style popular in the Victorian era by Sir James Matheson and substantially altered by Lord Leverhulme.
Isle of North Uist
These two converted blackhouses now form the Berneray hostel site of the Gatliff Trust and lie in a Conservation Area. The original croft houses probably dated from the 19th Century.
Isle of North Uist
The folly was built on the site of an Iron Age broch by Dr Alexander Macleod in the 1830’s to provided work during a famine. Now open to the elements, it is a nesting place for birds.
Isle of North Uist
A former inn with detached stable/storehouse, built on the site of an old salt house.
Isle of Benbecula
An iconic structure built in the early 1970s to service the RAF station in Balivanich.
Isle Of Benbecula
The current steading was built in the early 1700’s; originally the site was part of a Nunnery from 1300.
Isle of South Uist
Designed in 1965 by architect Richard McCarron, this Catholic church has been described as “brutalist”, owing little to traditional Outer Hebrides building styles. It was largely self-built by the parishioners.
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