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21.
Tain & District Museum.
1950

      

Large house on coast

Another unidentified large house, this one probably in a west Highland or possibly island setting. Can someone identify the striking coastal feature? The date is a guess - it is a reasonably modern photo.
19 April 2005.

Comments

I wonder if it's the Kyle of Tongue, before the causeway was built? Looking pretty much due west. There is an old house at that place.
Added by Sheila on 20 April 2005.

Thank you Sheila, I think it is the Kyle of Tongue, with the House of Tongue in the foreground.
Added by Estelle Quick on 22 April 2005.

It's not the Kyle of Tongue, the Dunes in front are quite the wrong shape, and the building is too large to be Tongue Youth Hostel. Have a look at this and this and you will see why.
Added by Calum Davidson on 26 April 2005.

The youth hostel at Tongue isn't Tongue house, though. The youth hostel is a reasonably modern building, with lots of wood - see this which looks very different from the 18th century house in the picture.

Dunes do move around a lot over time, and the building of the causeway will have changed the flow of water through the Kyle, so it could look completely different. Does anyone have any photos of this Kyle before the causeway was built, so we can compare?

I made the mistake of putting 'tongue' into google...
Added by Sheila on 29 April 2005.

Sheila - this is certainly not the Kyle of Tongue - it's an area I know very well, as we have a family Croft at Coldbackie, three miles from Tongue, and I remember it before the new road was built in 1971 (just!). Have a look at this and you will see a number of photos of the Kyle, and most importantly the shapes of the hills (Ben Hutig in particular) on the West side of the Kyle. The hills in this photo are the wrong shape, the House is Victorian, whilst Tongue Youth Hostel is post 1900 (Tongue House is 17th C with 19th Century Additions, and is a mile North of the Causway).

The new road across the Kyle is built on a shingle bar (a terminal moraine) rather than Dunes.

This photo above is not from North Sutherland, but nor is it from anywhere else I know in the Northern Highlands, Orkney or Shetland. The House and beach are quite distintictive, so I'm surprised that an immediate match has not been made.
Added by Calum Davidson on 03 May 2005.

Am I being thick? When I looked at this again I immediately thought of Portnaculter, a couple of miles from Tain. The spit is the right shape but the opposite shore doesn't look quite right. And what on earth is the house? It would be in about the right place for Edderton House but doesn't look right (the house was demolished in the 1950s - see the two pics on the Tain Museum image library [Pic 1] [Pic 2]).
Added by Estelle Quick on 03 May 2005.

The picture is of Melness House before the causeway was opened in 1971. The photo was taken from above the road leading to Midtown, Skinnet and Talmine on the West side of the Kyle
Added by Eric Dykes on 14 August 2007.

Eric - its not the Kyle of Tongue or Melness House - see www.ambaile.org.uk/en/item/photograph_zoom.jsp?item_id=34426&zoom=2

The ambaile photo shows Melness House as nothing like the Victorian Structure above
Added by Calum Davidson on 27 February 2008.

For more information on this subject see the following website.
Tain & District Museum photos.




 
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