Ancillaries to south, West Side, Dunnet

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

The three-bay, single-storey crofthouse stands at the centre of the complex. It is built of rubble with gabled ends and features a Caithness slate roof, whitewashed walls, a central door, and eight-pane sash and case windows to the main east elevation. End chimneystacks are present. A lean-to extension containing a kitchen and W.C. was added to the rear around 1960.

The adjoining outbuildings step down on either side. To the north are a store and workshop with a hen house or 'little barn', while to the south are a byre and stable, each with corrugated metal roofs and skylights together with two door openings. The rear or stable and byre were 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 roof of Caithness slates, a tiny window to the south elevation, and a larger attic window to the west gable.

A detached thatched pig house sits to the rear (west) of the complex, thatched in marram grass with a small yard formed by upright Caithness flags. This is one of only around 40 known thatched structures surviving in the Highlands.

To the east of the crofthouse and stable is a detached kailyard built of low drystone walls with upright Caithness flags to the north. Integrated to its southwest corner is a rubble and slate milkhouse, 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. The interior is maintained as a museum displaying 19th and early 20th century household artefacts and furnishings. Features include v-boarded panelling to the walls, two box beds, a chimney piece with an open hearth and cooking equipment. The outbuildings largely have Caithness flags to the floor with 20th century roof structures. Stone slab trevisses (partitions) and troughs remain in the byre, timber stall dividers are present in the stable, and the milkhouse has shelving units made from Caithness flags.

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. Such vernacular buildings were once prolific across the Highlands and Islands, but those surviving substantially unaltered are rare. West Side Cottage demonstrates regional traditional building methods and materials, retaining 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 special interest, particularly the thatched pig house. The pig house is notable as one of only around 40 buildings or groups 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. These thatched buildings are important in demonstrating traditional building skills and earlier ways of life.

The statutory listing was revised in 2023, previously recorded as 'West Side, Dunnet (Mrs Calder)'.