Windhouse - Yell

[peeriebryan]

http://static.flickr.com/41/95849316_f33a942bf1.jpg

 

I thought the Windhouse deserved a thread of its own! Here's a few links to articles on the Windhouse. As far as I can tell, the only substanciated facts concerning the ghost tales is that a man's body was discovered in a shallow grave outside the kitchen window at the back of the house. But never let facts get in the way of a good story!

 

Reports about the English couple who bought it in 2003

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/2742611.stm

http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=623&id=163742003

http://www.countrysideonline.co.uk/newsruralenvironment-586.htm

 

Ghost stories and folklore (the first one seems to be the most thoroughly researched. The link was posted by Kevin in the ghost stories thread)

http://www.ghostweather.com/essays/windhouse.html

http://hometown.aol.co.uk/smurfkins1/windhouselegends1l.html

http://hometown.aol.co.uk/smurfkins1/index.html

 

Some 'arty' photos

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johncarolan/sets/72057594059085927/

[KOYAANISQATSI]

Never heard more about the refurb.

 

http://img295.imageshack.us/img295/6964/windhousemonofa8.jpg

 

Hope the new owners didn'a get grabbed by the ghoulies.

 

Beside the myth and legend of the place, it does seem to have a colourful history around it:

 

"Trew it is that in the year 1613, this Niniane Neving came with ane company of broken men immediatlie thairefter to the saidis landis and houssus of Wyndhouss and thair maist violentlie and maisterfullie brak the doors and windoss thairoff ejectis and outputis all the rest of his haill aires thair wyffs bairnis and servandis, gudes and geir and possest himselff with his whole familie and dwellis thair presentlie …" It seem sthat after Arthur Roberson returned from the hills where Ninian’s emissary had driven him, Ninian himself pursued him and "strok him with ane great battoun on the head and shoulder and uther pairtis of his bodie to effution of his blood in great quantities." The document ends: "Thair being dybers {by the way, do you realise I tried to swear here?}rie men rood and ignorant quha cannot wryte and reid nor know what securities meynis and the said Niniane causis thame do onything he plassis and to his humours … by the quhilk unjust dealing the haill {by the way, do you realise I tried to swear here?}rie of Zetland is oppressit and so useit be the said Ninian Neving Nottar foresaid."

^(overkeen Shetlink pottymouth guard made a nungawump of ye olde spelling)

 

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nivenfamily/genealogica_chapter4.html

 

http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/9812/pic010iy0.jpg

 

The crest is a main feature on the building but there seems little out there to say who it belongs to:

 

Buggrd if I could find it's origin onyway.

Maybe someone who knows more than diddly-squat, could enlighten.

http://www.houseofnames.com/xq/ASP/sId./qx/sitemap.htm

 

More lore here:

http://www.ghostweather.com/essays/windhouse.html

[Ghostrider]

 

ARMS

 

GILBERT NEVEN of Scousburgh. Bears Azure a fess betwixt an Increscent and Decrescent in chief, Argent and in base, a branch of palm slipped of the last.

Crest, a branch of palm vert.

Motto: “Vivis Sperandumâ€

Registered about 1690

 

THE COUNTY FAMILIES OF THE SHETLAND ISLANDS by Frances J Grant. Published 1893

[Guest posiedon]

peeriebryan

As far as I can tell, the only substanciated facts concerning the ghost tales is that a man's body was discovered in a shallow grave outside the kitchen window at the back of the house.

In my opinion there are NO substantiated facts concerning ghosts, ghouls, gods, goblins, I've ran out of Gs...................Trows, Leprechauns, or fairies.

If you have substantiated facts, please share them with us.

[trooter]

http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll278/Gorwad/001.jpg

 

This is a photo I took in May, roof is collapsing no sign of anyone being near it, which is a pity, I would love to see this being restored.

 

I have always heard about a child's skeleton being found and of a ghost dog.

 

http://shetlopedia.com/Windhouse

[Ghostrider]

^^ If its not crossed over the line between restoring and rebuilding already, it won't be long before it does, there's been a lot of deterioration since the 2003 picture.

 

How the left side of the front keeps on standing with the lintel of the lower window and a chunk of the wall gone, and been gone for a while, is a bit of a mystery. I guess it keeps one or two of the ghosts busy to keep it propped up all the time though.

 

Shetland is littered with old crumbling derelict laird's/merchant's houses, many of them with histories arguably almost as colourful as this one, I'm not sure if this one is any more worthy of salvage than any of the others. I guess the apathy and disinterest in many of them even today is a lasting legacy of just how much the population despised the people and their behaviours of the folk who built and lived in them.

[Njugle]

It's perhaps the subject for another thread but i have been amazed of late absorbing exactly how many big hooses, many derelict, that there are in Yell. Unst has it's fair share too, but Yell seems disproportionate. Was the land particularly good or did the isle attract mercantile interests? Or is it just a figment of my perception?

[Ghostrider]

^^ I've always had the perception that Unst had a disproportionate number of laird's etc buildings, an assumed probably the "most northerly" tag played in to the equation somewhere. May well just be due to the fact that Yell tends to be more of a place that I've been passing through heading either north or south, so didn't really pay so much attention, that makes it seem that way though.

 

Certainly between them Yell and Unst have a disportionate number of laird/merchant houses compared to the rest of Shetland. It can't have been the land as neither isle is anything special, there's certainly much better land at a number of other locations in Shetland. Perhaps fishing contributed, being as the isles had the ability to fish a far greater area of sea west/north/east of themsleves than most mainland or other isle locations, unless maybe the Ness. Which again has a somewhat disproportionate concentration of these types of buildings.

[MuckleJoannie]

Mike Finnie has a website listing many of the Haa houses of Shetland. Windhouse is not listed. I emailed him a while ago about one he had missed, which he has now included. He appears to be amenable to looking at any information that is passed on to him to complete his list.

[shetlander]

Going off topic a bit here, but the sheer number of derelict houses in Shetland was something that I was more acutely aware of on my last trip home than ever before, particularly in Unst and Yell. Interestingly, the missus (a first time visitor) remarked that it was a shame to see so many old houses going to ruin when she could see that Shetlanders were so obviously proud of other aspects of their heritage and culture.

 

I can't for the life of me understand why so many property owners seem happy to watch houses in their possession crumble, their worth in monetary terms going with them. At a time when demand for housing is still fairly high and the media is plugging the idea of getting away from it all and buying something to renovate, I'd certainly be attempting to flog anything I owned rather than see it fall down around my lugs.

 

Maybe some kind of SIC/HIE grant scheme to encourage folk to renovate traditional/older houses would act as some kind of incentive?

[Ghostrider]

^^ Not intending to knock your suggestion in any way as no doubt there are many old houses that do come in to the "could be done something with" category, many though have been left to go back to nature for one or more of numerous reasons.

 

Most old houses tend to be croft houses, and a lot of them are just too far from the current roads and utilities to be viable to refurbish. The sheer cost of connection to power and water supplies these days is bad enough when it's within a few metres already, but highly prohibitive if you need even a few hundred metres run to reach you. I'm afraid the sites for many houses today are partly chosen due to the proximity of existing services and utilities, rather than it being the "best" site in any other sense of the term.

 

Also in the case of former croft houses, few are located on the boundary of the property, and in agriculture in this day and age most of the crofts which have been abandoned for habitation were the most marginal even at their best, so tend to now simply be enclosed as one large park for grazings. If you fence off the house site and the access road, it gives you a "U" shaped park, which is a whole lot more difficult to gather stock in, or do any type f work in for that matter, than a generally square/rectangular/circular etc one. If you don't fence the access road, and put in grids at the house grounds bounday and field exit boundary, you get endless complaints from whoever is resident in the house about the amount of sheep/cow/horse/whatever crap that's on the access road and its messing up their vehicle(s), getting on their feet etc etc. Many owners just do not feel the relatively small sum you'd get for selling or renting a house at that location is anywhere near worth the hassle.

[Stu-Fred]

I mind me faider buyin me a book. It wis caa'd "Vaerdi Yarns" if i mind rite - "a shetland collection of supernatural tales". Wis' I stil hed da b*stard. Onywye, de wir a story in dare aboot da windhoose. I cin mind bits un pieces aboot da story -

 

It wis aboot a fellow dat wun ashore efter his ship wis wrecked. Tink it wis a christmas eve. He wandered up ower fur a start un cam across da laird's hoose. Da laird handed him an axe un a dram, un sent him t' da windhoose.

 

So he wandered ower t' da windhoose, fun himsel a suitable room wi a fireplace, un gud oot t' cut sum firewid. Eence he'd gotn da wid he heeded back inside, got a fire goin, hed a dram, dan fell asleep.

 

He wakened we da noise o scraepin un takkin on - un saa twa red een lookin doon on him. He jumped up un wrestled we da creature fur a start, un efter gettin a haad o' his axe, held it goin inta da heart o da beast.

 

He wakened da next mornin we da soond o kirk bells, gud oot fur a wander un cam athin viewin distance o da graveyard, un dare, stuckn inta een o da gravestanes wis his axe.

 

 

Tink dirs twaree versions o dis story. Annider een a'm heard is aboot a grey mass, redder as da beastie thing.

 

If your efter a good read on Shetland folklore, go un buy a copy o' "Folklore from Whalsay and Shetland" by John Stewart. Should be able t' pick a copy up fe da Shetland Times bookshop. A great book!

[marlin13]

The late Brucie of Arisdale was a great teller of stories particulary ghosty stories including a good number aboud Windhouse. Since his demise i think the stories have slipped a bit from the popularity, if thats the right word, that they once had

[Stu-Fred]

Never heard more about the refurb.

 

http://img295.imageshack.us/img295/6964/windhousemonofa8.jpg

 

Hope the new owners didn'a get grabbed by the ghoulies.

 

Beside the myth and legend of the place, it does seem to have a colourful history around it:

 

"Trew it is that in the year 1613, this Niniane Neving came with ane company of broken men immediatlie thairefter to the saidis landis and houssus of Wyndhouss and thair maist violentlie and maisterfullie brak the doors and windoss thairoff ejectis and outputis all the rest of his haill aires thair wyffs bairnis and servandis, gudes and geir and possest himselff with his whole familie and dwellis thair presentlie …" It seem sthat after Arthur Roberson returned from the hills where Ninian’s emissary had driven him, Ninian himself pursued him and "strok him with ane great battoun on the head and shoulder and uther pairtis of his bodie to effution of his blood in great quantities." The document ends: "Thair being dybers nungawump men rood and ignorant quha cannot wryte and reid nor know what securities meynis and the said Niniane causis thame do onything he plassis and to his humours … by the quhilk unjust dealing the haill nungawump of Zetland is oppressit and so useit be the said Ninian Neving Nottar foresaid."

^(overkeen Shetlink pottymouth guard made a nungawump of ye olde spelling)

 

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nivenfamily/genealogica_chapter4.html

 

http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/9812/pic010iy0.jpg

 

The crest is a main feature on the building but there seems little out there to say who it belongs to:

 

Buggrd if I could find it's origin onyway.

Maybe someone who knows more than diddly-squat, could enlighten.

http://www.houseofnames.com/xq/ASP/sId./qx/sitemap.htm

 

More lore here:

http://www.ghostweather.com/essays/windhouse.html

 

Da coat of arms on da left hand side belangs t' da Niven family (Niniane Neving). A'm no managed t' fin wha da idder een belangs ta yet.

[crofter]

25K

 

http://www.d-s-r.co.uk/property/windhouse.htm