St. Michael Archangel's Church in Turzańsk together with different tserkvas is designated as part of the UNESCO Wooden tserkvas of the Carpathian region in Poland and Ukraine.
The tserkva in Turzańsk, established as an Eastern Orthodox Church tsekva, later Uniate, was referenced in the first half of the sixteenth-century. The present tserkva was built at the start of the nineteenth-century in 1801, and later expanded in 1836, with a foyer and sacristy. In 1896 and 1913, the tserkva had undergone renovations of its roof, strengthening it with tin. After displacing the Ukrainian populous from the area, as part of Operation Vistula, the tserkva was used by Roman Catholics, between 1947 and 1961. In 1963, the tserkva was returned to the Polish Orthodox Church. The interior of the tserkva exhibits original components: iconostasis from 1895, and a polychrome from the turning point of the nineteenth and twentieth-century.
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Dating from the 15th century, Kisimul is the only significant surviving medieval castle in the Outer Hebrides. It was the residence of the chief of the Macneils of Barra, who claimed descent from the legendary Niall of the Nine Hostages. Tradition tells of the Macneils settling in Barra in the 11th century, but it was only in 1427 that Gilleonan Macneil comes on record as the first lord. He probably built the castle that dominates the rocky islet, and in its shadow a crew house for his personal galley and crew. The sea coursed through Macneil veins, and a descendant, Ruari ‘the Turbulent’, was arrested for piracy of an English ship during King James VI’s reign in the later 16th century.
Heavy debts eventually forced the Macneil chiefs to sell Barra in 1838. However, a descendant, Robert Lister Macneil, the 45th Chief, repurchased the estate in 1937, and set about restoring his ancestral seat. It passed into Historic Scotland’s care in 2000.
The castle dates essentially from the 15th century. It takes the form of a three-storey tower house. This formed the residence of the clan chief. An associated curtain wall fringed the small rock on which the castle stood, and enclosed a small courtyard in which there are ancillary buildings. These comprised a feasting hall, a chapel, a tanist’s house and a watchman’s house. Most were restored in the 20th century, the tanist’s house serving as the family home of the Macneils. A well near the postern gate is fed with fresh water from an underground seam. Outside the curtain wall, beside the original landing-place, are the foundations of the crew house, where the sailors manning their chief’s galley had their quarters.