Cornhouse (Canmore ID 182106) is located on the south-east edge of the Bay of Pierowall, Westray (NGR HY 44919 48207). The south building dates from the late eighteenth to early nineteenth century, and is a ‘Category C’ Listed Building (LB 47994). The north building may be of a similar date.
According to the Ordnance Survey Name Book (Book 26) of 1882, Cornhouse was used as a grain store. During the eighteenth century, when bere and oats were exported from Westray, these crops may have been stored at the site before being loaded on to a boat.
The First Edition Ordnance Survey map of 1881 shows the site as comprising two roofed structures and a pier. An unroofed structure or enclosure butts against the north-east corner of the southernmost building. The site layout is identical on later Ordnance Survey of 1901, but with external stairs shown at the east end of both buildings. The pier is no longer visible on late twentieth-century mapping and was not identified during the fieldwork survey.
The site was recorded by the ORCA team and local volunteers in October 2024.
South building
The south building is a two-storey, stone rubble-built structure measuring 10m by 5m. The walls are clay-bonded with alternate canted quoins. Much of the flagstone roof has collapsed, exposing the timber roof trusses. Both the west and east gables are crow-stepped.
The north-facing wall has an external doorway with a stone lintel and threshold. Internally, the doorway has a timber lintel and each side has a deep recess indicating the doorway probably had a substantial frame.
The west-facing gable has a chimney and a blocked window is visible on the first-floor. The south-facing wall has two windows at ground floor level, both of which have been blocked using large stone rubble fragments bonded by lime mortar.
An external staircase, built from stone rubble-built, survives on the east gable, leading to a first floor external doorway. Directly below this door is a ground floor doorway accessed via a passage running below the staircase.
Inside, the walls have been rendered with a thin layer of lime mortar, much of which has fallen away, exposing the stone wall. The floor was made using stone flags throughout.
The first floor was not safely accessible but a fireplace built in the west elevation of the second floor could be seen through a gap in the first floor timbers. The fireplace had a large, stone lintel.
North building
The north building is a two-storey, stone rubble-built structure, although much of the first floor walling has gone and nothing of the roof survives. The building measures 12m by 5m in plan.
The north-east wall has a centrally-placed external doorway with a stone lintel and slightly raised threshold, with an internal recess similar to that in the south building. The north-west elevation has a 3m-wide opening at its north end, which is a much later, probably modern, modification to the building.
The south-west wall is plain other than the slots for the first-floor support timber visible in the stonework. The south-east elevation has an external doorway on the first floor and a pronounced stony rise in the ground below may represent rubble from a demolished staircase.
Inside the building, the floor surface is now completely obscured by soil, stone debris and scrub vegetation. Twenty-four beam slots for the first floor were visible, running the full-length of the north-east and south-west elevations.
