MAAC Studio have been appointed to prepare a examine the building fabric and prepare a report on the maintenance and repair needs for this important historic property.
Originally built in 1711, by Hugh Feddes, this cottage has become more famous through its associations with the famous Hugh Miller. A renowned Victorian Hugh Miller was variously described as Fossil hunter, folklorist, Christian, stonemason, geologist, newspaper editor, social justice campaigner.
At 17 he was apprenticed to a stonemason and his work in quarries, together with walks along the local shoreline, led him to the study of geology.
Miller developed his lifelong fascination with natural history initially as an almost entirely self-taught amateur geologist. His discoveries of Devonian fossil fish described in The Old Red Sandstone (1841) and Footprints of the Creator (1847) elevated him into the front rank among the natural scientists of his time. He won pre-eminence as a populariser of this then new science, with his wonderful powers of description.
His fossil collection of over 6,000 specimens formed the founding core of what is today's Scottish national collection in the National Museums of Scotland. Some of his and other collectors’ outstanding specimens can be seen in the Beginnings gallery, situated in the basement of the NMS tower on Chambers St, Edinburgh.
At one time, almost all rural dwellings would have been thatched, these were gradually replaced with slate roofs and this cottage is one of the few thatched cottages remaining.