The Colbost Croft Museum was established by Peter MacAskill in 1969. Peter has lived most of his life on Skye, and spent his childhood in a croft cottage next door to an old black house.
The black house is now the main feature of the museum, and shows how many people in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland lived in the 19th century, with the family living in one room and the livestock under the same roof in a second room.
There is a fire in the middle of one room with the smoke going up through the thatched roof, which coverered the roof in soot, hence the term “black house“.
The replica illicit still up to the left behind the museum has been badly storm-damaged but we hope this will be repaired in the near future.