No 3

This engraved stone caught my eye last Sunday afternoon during a walk through the Newton area of Stornoway. After putting the question on Twitter, I got a reply through the kind intervention of Donald Macsween, from Malcolm Macdonald of the Stornoway Historical Society and local historian Sandy Matheson.

This refers to the Admiralty feus for the houses on Seaview Terrace. These included Caberfeidh Buildings as well as the RNR houses. The feu charters are dated 1888 and included what we knew as the Coast Guard houses as well as 2 and 4 on the corner with Seaview Terrace and Battery Road where Colin Ossian [Colin Macaskill, ADB] and his parents lived as tenants of the Stornoway Trust. These two houses were of a better design and quality than the ones further east and were presumably for senior ranks. They were demolished circa 1969 by Stornoway Town Council and new houses erected on the site. The semi-detached houses on Battery Road where Robin Mackenzie’s family lived and the one north of that occupied by Jimmy? Bruce were also Admiralty Houses but of a later date and subject to me viewing them when the weather is better they too have the Anchor emblem on them.

The Seaview Terrace houses on the left as you leave Newton were built for a combination of HM Coastguard and the Royal Naval Reserve Battery where the Power Station is now. In 1919, on the closure of the RNR Battery the houses all became Coastguard Houses. The two semi-detached houses on Battery Road and the corner site on Seaview Terrace are occupied by more modern Council-style houses.