Pig House, West Side, Dunnet

A mid to late 19th century croft complex comprising a traditional longhouse-type L-plan crofthouse with adjoining outbuildings, a detached thatched pig house to the rear (west), and a kailyard with integrated milkhouse to the east. The buildings are rubble-built with gabled ends and a variety of traditional roofing materials. Known locally as Mary Ann's Cottage after its last owner and occupier, the site is now open to the public as a museum. It is situated in a rural setting just outside Dunnet village, near Thurso.

The three-bay, single-storey crofthouse at the centre has end chimneystacks, whitewashed walls, a Caithness slate roof, and a central door with eight-pane sash and case windows to the main east elevation. 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 is a store/workshop and hen house or 'little barn', both with corrugated metal roofs and skylights and two door openings each. To the south are a byre and stable, also with corrugated metal roofs and skylights, with the rear byre partially rebuilt in blockwork. A cart shed and turnip store abut to the south, roofed with very large Caithness flags. A threshing barn, added in 1905, abuts to the south at right angles, with a Caithness slate roof, a tiny window to the south elevation and a larger attic window to the west gable.

The detached pig house to the rear (west) is thatched in marram with a small yard formed by upright Caithness flags. The kailyard, detached and located immediately east of the crofthouse and stable/byre, is built of low drystone walls with upright Caithness flags to the north. A rubble and slate milkhouse is integrated to the southwest corner of the kailyard, accompanied by a peat neuk and a former duckhouse (later kennel), both with walls and roofs formed in Caithness flags.

The interior of the crofthouse 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 at the rear. The building is maintained as a museum displaying 19th and early 20th century household artefacts and furnishings. Notable interior features include v-boarded panelling to the walls, two box beds, a chimney piece with an open hearth, and cooking equipment. Various agricultural objects are displayed in the outbuildings, which largely have Caithness flags to the floor. The byre retains stone slab trevisses (partitions) and troughs, the stable has timber stall dividers, and the milk house contains shelving units made from Caithness flags. The roof structures of the outbuildings date from the 20th century.

Along the front of the house is a flagstone-paved close 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. Vernacular buildings of this type were once prolific across the Highlands and Islands, but those surviving substantially unaltered are rare. West Side demonstrates regional traditional building methods and materials and retains a significant proportion of its historic fabric, 19th century footprint, vernacular form, character and setting. The retention and grouping of the crofthouse with its various ancillary structures is of particular interest, especially 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 Survey of Thatched Buildings in Scotland published in 2016 by the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings found only around 200 such buildings remaining in Scotland, most in small rural communities. Thatched buildings are typically traditionally built, displaying distinctive local and regional building methods and materials. Their survival is important for understanding traditional skills and an earlier way of life.