Kailyard Walls and Milk House, West Side, Dunnet

Kailyard Walls and Milk House, West Side, Dunnet

A mid to late 19th century crofthouse and outbuildings in a traditional longhouse type L-plan, known locally as Mary Ann's Cottage after its last owner and occupier. The complex now operates as a museum open to the public as of 2023. It is located in a rural setting just outside the village of Dunnet, near Thurso.

The principal building is a three-bay, single-storey crofthouse with end chimneystacks, whitewashed rubble walls, and a Caithness slate roof. The main east elevation features a central door and eight-pane sash and case windows. A lean-to extension providing a kitchen and W.C. was added around 1960 to the rear.

The adjoining outbuildings step down on either side of the crofthouse. To the north lie a store and workshop with a hen house or "little barn", each with corrugated metal roofs and skylights. To the south are a byre and stable, also with corrugated metal roofs and two door openings, with the rear portion partially rebuilt in blockwork. A cart shed and turnip store abut to the south with roofs of very large Caithness flags. A threshing barn, added in 1905, abuts to the south at right angles; it is roofed with Caithness slates and features a tiny window to the south elevation and a larger attic window to the west gable. A detached thatched pig house stands to the rear (west), thatched in marram grass with a small yard formed by upright Caithness flags.

The kailyard is detached and located immediately to the east of the crofthouse and stable-byre. It is built of low drystone walls with upright Caithness flags to the north. A rubble and slate milkhouse is integrated into the southwest corner of the kailyard, along with a peat neuk and a former duckhouse (later kennel), both with walls and roofs formed in Caithness flags.

The crofthouse interior comprises an entrance corridor, a bedroom to the south, and a kitchen to the north providing access to a further bedroom located behind the entrance corridor and the later lean-to extension. The interior is maintained as a museum displaying 19th and early 20th century household artefacts and furnishings. Features include v-boarded wall panelling, two box beds, a chimney piece with an open hearth and cooking equipment. The outbuildings contain various agricultural objects and largely have Caithness flags to the floor. Roof structures are primarily 20th century. Stone slab trevisses (partitions) and troughs remain in the byre; timber stall dividers survive in the stable. The milk house contains shelving units made from Caithness flags.

A flagstone-paved close fronts the house with a drainage channel leading to a drain in front of the barn door.

This is a well-preserved example of a traditional croft complex. Such vernacular buildings were once prolific across the Highlands and Islands, but substantially unaltered survivors are rare. West Side retains significant historic fabric, 19th century footprint, vernacular form, character and setting, demonstrating regional traditional building methods and materials. The retention and grouping of the crofthouse with its various ancillary structures is of particular interest, notably the thatched pig house.

The pig house is one of only around 40 buildings or groups of buildings in the Highlands known to retain an intact thatched roof. A 2016 survey by the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings found approximately 200 thatched buildings remaining in Scotland, with most located in small rural communities. Thatched buildings typically demonstrate distinctive local and regional construction methods and materials. Those that survive are important for understanding these traditional skills and earlier ways of life.