Extract from a history of the MacDougall`s house at Port Ban

Charles MacDougall was a skilled cowan (apprentice stonemason) from Mull, brought to Tiree by the Duke of Argyll in the 1780s to build estate buildings and boundary walls. He built his house (now a ruin) in the style of the Mull stonemasons, i.e. 3ft thick and filled with stones, rather than in the Tiree style which was 5ft thick and filled with sand. Around 1848, the MacDougall family were evicted from Port Ban for making whisky!