Hallan Roundhouses (Cladh Hallan)

In May 2000 Cladh Hallan was the focus of a series of national newspaper reports in Scotland as well as a news item on Radio 4, because of the discovery in 1999 of a remarkable "terraced row" of three Late Bronze Age roundhouses which prompted headlines such as "Good Neighbours in 1000 BC" (Scotland on Sunday) and "Neighbours from Hell" (Daily Record". Cladh Hallan was in the national and international news again in November with reports of a new chemical technique applied to the residues of cooking pots to identify preserved traces of milk protein. Was this the earliest recording of porridge being made in Scotland?

The Hallan roundhouses are sign posted off the A865 at Dalabrog. Follow the signs to almost the end of the road where a large power pylon stands. From there a level track leads across the machair to the roundhouses where there are information signs explaining the history of the site.

There are at least 80 ancient settlement sites along the machair of western South Uist. Of these, Cladh Hallan is one of the most recent to be excavated. Tucked into a high bank in the encroaching machair are three complete roundhouses and a small smokehouse for curing meat. The buildings date to the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age, about 1100-200 BCE). About 100 metres away is a second smokehouse dated to around 200 BCE.

Courtesy (in part) of https://www.britainexpress.com/attractions.htm?attraction=4966

Penelope, the new wife of Allan MacDonald, the Chief of the Clan Ranald, came to the Hebrides and was less than impressed with her new residence, Borgh Castle on Benbecula. She persuaded her husband to employ French masons to build a new residence, Ormacleit Castle, and they moved in in 1708. She was a Jacobite and Ormacleit Castle became a center for Jacobite sympathisers. Allan fought in the 1715 uprising and was killed at the Battle of Sheriffmuir on 13th November 1715. Ormacleit Castle was destroyed by fire about the same time.

Penelope moved to Nunton on Benbecula, where she helped to run the Clan Ranald estate and help to sustain Roman Catholicism in the southern part of the Outer Hebrides.