Houses And Water Mills

Very few houses go back beyond the 19th century as they were very primitive in construction being built with a foundation of stones from the fields and having walls and roofs of feal. Early censuses show that many more houses were occupied in the Herra than those located on maps. It is likely that the stones were removed for other buildings. Sometimes an old house which has been used for animals is found to have a window. This suggests that it had been occupied at some time. One such small house, now ruined, was built beside the yard dyke at Effstigarth and others in Gremister were used for lambs.

Houses often had yards to the front or back of the buildings. The front was used mainly for growing vegetables and perhaps had a small garden plot. Hay and harvested crops were built in the back yards where it was easily accessible for animals kept indoors in winter.

Many of the crofts were in the three to five acre range. That was to keep a large family with the father as head of the household being classed as a fisherman/crofter. By the end of the 19th century, after the Crofters’ Act of 1886 houses were being improved. Thatch was being taken off roofs and felt or slate used, porches were built, walls were heightened and rooms were made upstairs. People expected an improvement in school buildings too.

North House Effstigarth late 1940s

Water Mills

Three working mills were built in the Herra: on the Burn of Volister, on the Burn of Bouster and on the Burn of Filda east of Raga. A mill was begun to be built on the Burn of Graveland but was never completed. There are ruins of what might be a mill on the burn to the south of Bouster. The mill at Filda was wrecked in the years about 1910 when youths unsuccessfully tried to get it working. Before the Filda Mill was built people rowed across the voe to use the Volister Mill.

There was also a mill at Lumbister.