CLASS ACT

A clever conversion has turned a former school on Harris into a smart, functional new home

- Gillian Welsh

What gives a particular building iconic status? Its impact on its surroundings? A design that has stood the test of time? Whether it successfully reflects local cultural values? All of these? If so, cute-as-a-button Cliasmol Primary on Harris would have scored a hattrick. Once known as Scotland’s smallest school, its gates were closed for the final time 12 years ago when the register had fallen to just four. It was put up for sale in 2015, at which point Marion and Colin McNeill considered buying it. The couple, owners of a small business in Edinburgh, knew the school well, having passed it on regular visits to their old family house on the island. They and their children would look out for the little building’s bright red cladding, the long-anticipated pop of colour on the twisting single-track road, and know they were almost at their destination.

When it came back onto the market two years later, they seized the chance to buy this time. The McNeills have a strong connection to the local community as well as their family ties to the area and they knew this was a cherished building. It holds the trump cards of remoteness, location and views: perched by a burn in a rugged valley, looking out to sea and just a few miles from the dreamy white shores of Hushinish beach, it has seriously breathtaking credentials that simply couldn’t be messed with.

If they were going to convert what was undeniably a very rudimentary structure into a contemporary two-bedroom home, it was going to be sympathetically done to honour the island and not lose any of its dazzling simplicity. They would change the name (it’s now called Brandersaig) but keep everything else that made it so special.