Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Episode 18
Episode 18
On the dead end road that runs along the coast north of Stornoway we came to the ‘bridge to nowhere’ at the end. This bridge was built soon after WW1 at a time shortly after Lord Leverhulme bought the island in 1919, and had plans to develop it. Because of the trouble he had with the crofters and villagers wanting the land they had been promised for service in the war, the road was never finished and hasn’t been touched in more recent years either. It’s possible to drive over it and its a good solid bridge two lanes wide, a 4wd track carries on for some way. Here, too there is a good walk to the top end of the island and the lighthouse but it’s a very wet track at any time, you need wellington boots up to your hips after all the recent rain.
We did it the easy way, we drove round the road. The first few miles crossing the island is just passing across one big peat bog. All along the way you can see where the peat has been cut leaving ridges and gullies. A great many of the islands residents have a small allotment of peat each and in the spring time they can be seen out cutting and stacking the peat. It is left to dry out over the summer then taken home loose, or in bags, ready for the coming winter. At this time of year the grass, mosses and heather on the bogs is generally a browish colour, whether that is due to the tannin in the peat or the time of year I cannot say. All the streams are the colour of tea from the tannin.
At the top of the island stands the lighthouse overlooking a very rugged piece of coast with ‘sea stacks’ and rocky off shore islands. An icy cold, fierce wind was blowing and the rough sea breakers were crashing into the rocky shore and sending big bits of spume way up past where we were sitting in the car. Took us a few minutes to work out what these lumps of white stuff were that came flying past us. The cliffs are summer breeding grounds for gannets, puffins and fulmars, but none are here now. Don’t blame them, not a good place to be just now:
As we had to travel back down the same route we had driven straight to the top, we stopped off at all the points of interest on the way back down. The 12th century church of St Moluag was our first stop. It’s a very simple little church that was restored in the early 20th century. It has just one small stained glass window in the nave, so with the door shut its very dark inside. There were some stone circles that we tried to see, we drove through the flooded track to get to the parking lot only to find that the walking track was even more flooded so we gave them a miss, there are plenty more standing stones and stone circles to see.
The site of the Del waterwheel and mill was another stop we made. All that remains is the housing for the wheel and part of the race, where the water passed through to turn the wheel. This was a horizontal wheel, not a vertical one. The old mill buildings are there too but all boarded up. Some way further on we came to the ‘standing stone’ at Trusseil. This is just one lone stone that stands about 5m high, must have taken some effort to get it into position.
All along the way we went from one village to the next. Most of the houses were fairly modern, built with render coating and usually painted grey. Plenty of old stone houses left to decay at a fairly rapid pace in this damp climate and lots of old cars left to do the same, they can be seen all around in various stages of rusting away. Sheep wander the streets just like erratic pedestrians; even saw one being taken for a walk on a lead and none too happy about it either.
All through these islands the Gaelic language has been revived and most seem to speak it, all the signs are in both English and Gaelic, but it seems to be that they cannot agree on the spelling as each different map had the place names spelt differently, all are totally unpronounceable anyway. Here the word Gaelic is pronounced very similar to garlic the vegetable.
In the village of Bragar there is a huge arch. It is the jawbone of a mighty blue whale that was washed up on shore back in the whaling days. It had a harpoon through the jawbone, its still there, and when a local blacksmith tried to remove it, it fired and he was badly injured. Now it stands up vertically as a big arch beside the road. Must have been an enormous whale:
An old Norse Mill and kiln have been restored and a 10 mins walk along a wet track took us to it. These are referred to as Norse mills but I did read someplace that its more likely they were introduced from Ireland than from the Nordic countries. This one is in 2 separate buildings. Small stone bothies, stone walls with a thatch or turf roof: Inside one only the pit can be seen over which the kiln would have stood. It was mainly barley that was grown here, and oats, too wet for wheat; and the grain had first to be dried before it could be milled and this was done in this kiln house. Next door was the mill house with the wooden shoot over the 2 quern stones, the top one with a hole in it so that the grain went through it to be ground between the top and the bottom stones, then pushed out into an area where it would have been shovelled into some sort of container. This mill was driven by another horizontal wheel under the mill. Water to power the wheel was led through a race above the mill then dropped down into the wheel housing. It came from a small lochan about 600m away through channels that had been dug. This old mill had been restored in recent years.
A village of ‘black houses’ we came too next. This village, Gearranan, had been occupied until 1973, at which time only a few elderly people were still living in them and they were re-housed in new council houses with indoor plumbing. In 1976 a preservation order was placed on them and through the latter part of the 1990’s they were restored. Now, several of them are let out as self contained holiday cottages, one is an office and information room and another is a hostel run by the Gatliff Trust. This hostel is in much better condition that the one we stayed in one Berneray. They are all built of stone and the roofs are of thatch held down with stones around the bottom edge and with fish netting over all the thatch. It is believed that there has been a village on this site since at least 400AD, perhaps earlier. There was so many people living here in the early 1900’s that it got the name ‘china town’.
One of these types houses that we’d seen early but wasn’t open had been divided into two sections, one for the animals and one for people. From the notice board outside I had read that it had been occupied until the 1960’s and at that time the people had kept chickens and 1 small beast (didn’t say what sort of beast) in the animal side. In the centre of the living quarter had been a peat fire, originally sitting on the earthen floor but in more recent times in some sort of stove.
Carloway Broch was the next place we came too along the coast. A Broch is believed to have been a superior dwelling probably where the landowner lived. The walls are 2 concentric circles, one inside the other, with a gap between wide enough for a stairway to the top or a higher level. The one here is the best preserved one about, almost half of it remains and you can get a pretty fair idea of how it looked. Then the information board has a drawing of what the archaeologists think it should have looked like. An almost beehive shape structure, about 6 to 8m high with the walls gradually sloping inwards: The inner circle had a diameter of around 6 to 7m, and the artists impression puts a pointed roof with a central pole over the centre. A tiny door barely 1m high was the only access, a similar size doorway led to the stairwell between the walls; this was 800mm to 1m wide. It’s believed this one dates from around 200AD.
There are the ruins of many more smaller buildings similar to this, the smaller ones are generally referred to as ‘duns’ and were a small fortified house, now generally just a small pile of rocks. Some beehive houses too, but mostly just a shallow round hole in the ground is all that is to be seen.
Then we came to more stone circles going back 3000BC. These are the Callanish stone circles and the main one here is quite impressive. Most of the stones are still standing. Like the one we saw in the Lake District, the eastern side seems to be flattened, not a true circle. This circle had a line of standing stones leading away from it in each direction, north, south, east and west. The northern stones stand in two lines as though lining a wide roadway. In the centre is a large burial chamber. Archaeologists have found that this complex had been built over many centuries, the circle being the oldest. The burial chamber centuries later and the bodies entombed here had been cremated.
The people at the time the circle was built used to build their fields up high with drainage channels between, these were called ‘lazy beds’. Centuries later, after all the stones had been erected, the remains had been taken from the tombs and ploughed into the ground all around the stones. At this time the earlier raised beds had been ploughed and the channels too, then in more recent centuries the lazy bed system had again been used, but by this time the peat had formed. When the stones had first been erected there wasn’t the extensive peat fields there is now. In the mid 19th Century when James Matheson was having the stones excavated there was 1.5m of peat around them that had to be removed. Underneath the earliest lazy beds an even older drainage ditch has been found.
Two other stone circles we looked at here, one with only 5 stones still standing has a burial chamber in the centre, and the other is nearly a complete circle still standing but with nothing in the centre.
We drove across the bridge onto the little Island of Great Bernera. They call this bridge, the bridge over the Atlantic. Bit like calling the bridge to Bribie Island the bridge over the Pacific. Anyway, on the far side of the island we came to another ‘Iron Age’ House. This one has been constructed on the lines of several that were found in the late 1990’s when beach erosion unearthed them. They lie under the sand of this lovely little beach at Bostadh. These too are from around 400AD: They are excavated into the ground about 1m deep and have stone walls about 1m high. They are not round but more elongated and this one has been given a thatch roof but no trace of the original roofs has been found. Like the Broch it has a tiny entrance door about 1m high and you step down into the house.
Still on the lookout for those elusive otters but none have yet shown themselves:
On the Uig peninsular on the west coast we came across the place where the Uig chessmen were found quite by accident. We had pulled into a small parking area near a beach to have a cup of coffee when we spotted a wooden sculpture of a chessman so I went and read the sign and learnt that the chessmen were found right near this spot and that we could learn more about them in the local museum so we set off to visit it. That wasn’t as straight forward as one might think. When we found the museum it was closed but we could phone one of two people and arrange to see it with them so this we did. I phoned this chap Finlay and then we had to go 4 miles to pick him up and bring him back with us. He let us in and we had a look about.
The Uig chessmen were found in a stone cist covered by a sand dune in 1831 and they are carved from Walrus ivory. They are Norse in origin and probably were carved in Trondheim in Norway in the mid 12th century. Just why they were buried in the sand dunes of Lewis no one will ever know. There are 78 chessmen belonging to 4 different sets and 14 other pieces that are gaming pieces and one belt buckle 64mm (2.5in) long. The pieces range in height from 3.5cm to 10.5cm. They all have very dour expressions on their faces. None of the actual pieces are here still, all we could do was read about them and see some models of them. 11 of the pieces are in some museum in Edinburg and the rest are in the British museum in London.
The museum had quite a good display, an interior of a black house, one of the more modern ones with a fire place against the end wall. There were some seal skins on the floor too and they have quite coarse fur, not soft like some I have seen.
We thanked Finlay and took him home, then carried on our way.
This area is more sparsely populated than further north. It is more hilly too and it does have some lovely light sandy beaches with gently lapping water. They would be great if the air and water temperature were 10˚ to 15˚C warmer. Some nice little rocky islands just offshore: It is quite a pretty area but in winter I think it could be very bleak indeed.
David decided that he would like to see the Garrabost grain mill if possible, he had read about it at the other mill we visited. So we drove out to the village and asked directions from there. By chance we asked at the house of the sister of the man who now runs it. She sent us to see him.
His name is Angus Graham Morrison and he invited us in and told us about the mill. On the living room wall he has some old photos of the mill taken early last century, one with a t-model ford in it. From his computer he copied some material he had written about the mill and some of the photos onto our jump drive so David may put them onto the blog with this.
The mill started working in 1896 and at that time it was powered by a water wheel. Later an oil engine was installed in 1908 and it’s still there now and working. Graham’s grandfather worked in the mill until 1946, and his father from 1930 until he retired. He is now 91, and came down to join us when we went down to have a look at the mill.
Graham showed us the kiln and how the grain is dried first before it can be milled. The grain is laid on a drying bed with a fine mesh base half a ton at a time and the heat from the peat fired kiln passes through the mesh and dries the grain. Then it has to pass through a mill that removes the husk and the dust, next it goes to the other mill where it is ground into flour. The stones that mill the grain into flour must be dressed, when the mill was working full time this was about every two months. This is a major job, and a very exacting one. The top stone has to be lifted and worked on while its upright and the bottom one, it weighs one ton, is left in situ. By dressing I mean that a special design has to be chiselled out of the stone so that the grain is ground just right.
Here they mill barley into flour and it is sold in some of the local stores. They only do a small amount each season now; it’s not a business more of a hobby for Graham who is a retired physics teacher. He generously gave us a bag of the flour and some recipes to try when we get the opportunity.
As we were leaving Graham also told us that wild minks on the island cause havoc with hens. Introduced in the 1950’s to be farmed some have escaped and now are a major pest. They can get through a very small hole and will kill 30 hens overnight.
We thank Graham very much for showing us around his mill. The old photos of the mill, the engine and the name plate are all courtesy of Graham Morrison.
In the cafe in the Stornoway library we tried some ‘barley bannock’ made with the barley flour milled by Graham. It was round, about 1.5cm thick and brown, bit like a thick chapatti, and it had a bit of a malt flavour. It was served with thick clotted cream, just a little sour. Can’t say that I can recommend it, too heavy for my tastes and David wasn’t impressed either.
On our way back south to Tarbert to catch the ferry we took many of the side roads that twisted and turned around the hills and the lochs. We were still on the lookout for those otters so we stopped several times in places where we thought they might be but to no avail. Just aren’t meant to see them.
Just north of Tarbert we took the road along the loch out to the west coast where we came to another lovely wide sandy beach and finally ending at a boat ramp where we could look over to the island of Scarp, just off shore. Along the way we had passed Amhuinnsuidhe Castle. It’s more of a big stately home than a castle and it stands just back for the shore of a small bay. The road runs right past the front door, east bound traffic miss it by inches. A lovely lawn runs down to the stone fence along the shore, and there are stone walls on either side. On the western side we passed under a high stone arch and immediately passed 4 ‘row’ houses that were probably built for the employees. They are now a B and B, the castle though has a sign on the door that it is a private residence.
All the little waterfalls were still gushing over the hillsides and could have run a thousand water wheels with all the rain that had fallen over the past week. It has been too wet for us to do any walks really as the peat is sodden.
A last word about the islands before we leave them: One of the main industries here is the production of Harris Tweed. There are a lot of small places that still seem to be making it. Although named after the island of Harris, the main production is now on Lewis. Apart from this and some fishing there does not seem a lot for the people to do. The summer provides quite a lot of jobs in the tourist and related industries but by now the tourists are a bit thin on the ground and many things have closed for the season so I am at a loss to work out what people do to earn a living. The few sheep and cows most of the crofts have would perhaps provide a bit of a supplementary income but by no means enough to keep a family.
It was a cold windy day that we took the ferry from Tarbert to Uig in Skye, a crossing of less than two hours on a busy Saturday. The ferry had nearly a full load of cars, it is the end of mid term holidays for some schools, and there were many families on board.
First thing I noticed about Uig were the trees. On the outer islands there are no trees apart for a few planted pine forests and very occasionally people have some wind blown spruce in their gardens. Now, back on Skye we were greeted with a cluster of trees in the valley wearing their autumn colours. Up on the hillside overlooking the town we could see Frasers Folly a brick round tower two or three stories high, and on the skyline we saw another standing stone:
Flora MacDonald who helped Bonny Prince Charley escape from Eriskay and brought him to Skye dressed as her maid is buried here on this Island in a small churchyard a few miles north of Uig. There is a large monument topped with a Celtic cross on her grave, she died in 1790. Also in this church yard is an old grave slab of a knight in Mail. It’s on the grave of “Angus of the wind”, it is said that he stole it from another grave, possibly a kings and brought it here on his back ready for his own grave.
A small stone age cavern was found in this same area only a few years ago. It is narrow and about 7 to 8 metres long, low, and lined with stones. As it has a lot of water in the bottom we didn’t venture very far into it but it seems to have small side caverns off the main tunnel. It’s all lined with stones and archaeologists think that it was used to store dairy products. For want of a better theory I expect. Nearby are two round hollows in the ground that are the bases of two old round houses from the same period. The cavern was only found when one of the lentils collapsed and suddenly there was a hole in the ground where there shouldn’t be one.
Further up the coast we came to what remains of Duntulm castle. It was built on a high knoll overlooking the sea with cliffs on two sides. There really is much to see, a few walls are still standing but there are some big piles of rubble too. Much of the stone has been carted off to use in newer buildings. It was once the home of the Macdonalds but they abandoned it in 1732.
On this northern end of the island there are some very craggy mountains and steep bluffs, it’s a very picturesque area. Little tiny villages that are hidden then you come across them suddenly when you come round a bend in the narrow road. Often only three or four houses: The sheep here have the same attitude that they did on the outer islands too, they stand on the road or amble off to the side at their leisure, never in a hurry, and are often lying on the edge of the tarmac watching the passing traffic slow to almost a standstill as it negotiates its way around them. We have seen the sad remains of one or two that misjudged the attitude of passing drivers.
One day we did some walking in the Quiraing, these are those craggy mountains in the north east. A pointy pinnacle called ‘the needle’ is one; an outcrop is called the prison, and a flat piece ‘the table’. The sign at the start said 2.8 miles but we didn’t know what place was 2.8miles. The walk was a relatively easy one, some short steepish bits but no scrambling. Generally it was a steady climb. Some parts of the track were fairly muddy but they could be avoided and there were plenty of cow and sheep droppings all along the way, not always possible to avoid. We went first in one direction and after a few kilometres came out on a high peak with a great view and a vertical cliff edge. Seeing another higher vantage point not far away we made for that and nearly got blown off the mountain the wind was so strong but we made it to the top. The view over the whole of the northern part of the Island was brilliant, well worth the climb.
At a stile we met some young fellows with a map and found that the needle and the prison were off in the other direction so we made our way back about 2k’s to a junction of tracks and headed off up the ridge to the south. As we came over a saddle between the main range and an outcrop we found ourselves almost right below the needle though the view was better from further along the track. Another ½ a k brought us to another side track, this one up onto the ‘prison’ outcrop. Not that we could quite work out the ‘prison’ in this outcrop. I went on up this path by myself David didn’t feel as if he could do that bit extra, we still had several k’s to go back to the car but mostly downhill. Anyway I climbed up this track that eventually brought me out onto the edge of a drop off where I could look down on where I’d left David. Another cliff beside me was part of the walls of the ‘prison’ I think. In places on this track the wind was ferocious. When I got back to the junction David had already left on his way back down, he had got too cold just waiting for me. Back at the car he had the kettle just about boiling when I arrived. I needed that cuppa.
Someone we’d met had also told us that the track led from the car park where we’d parked to one at the top, and that was the 2.8miles. We had got to within 1 mile of that top car park. The whole walk would have been easier from it too as it was on about the same level as the higher parts of the main track. Still we got our exercise.
Further down the coast we came to Kilt Rock. This is a basalt formation in the cliffs over the sea. The vertical basalt columns are the pleats and the layers of silt stone and Jurassic sandstone are the cross coloured threads on the plaid. Well, that’s what the pamphlet says; just have to use your imagination. Between the viewpoint and the basalt columns there is an impressive waterfall. It drops straight over the cliffs into the sea, probably about 50m or so and the wind catches the water and blows it back up. This is Mealt waterfall.
A bit further along the road and right beside it is Lealt waterfall; it falls into a gorge that then flows a further 400m to the sea. Here we followed another path a short way and come to a notice board and learnt that immediately below us on the shore was the ruins of a crushing plant for Diatomite. This diatomite was mined 3 miles inland and brought to this point on some sort of rail wagon that people pushed along. Nothing to say how they got it down the cliff, we would have thought a shute of some sort but seeing as these Scotts were using human power, not horse or oxen to pull the rail wagon we’re none too sure that they were bright enough to think of using a shute to get it down the cliff. It was crushed at the bottom then loaded onto small boats and taken out to be reloaded onto ships, all by hand.
Diatomite is a whitish claylike substance formed from microscopic diatom shells and is used as an insulation for ships boilers, filters for beer, and in dynamite. It was mined on the edge of a small loch and we tried to go in there but the rough track was a bit much for the little car. We think that this track must also have been where the rail line ran as we could see no other alternative. The mine worked from 1896 to at least 1914 perhaps later, so you would think there would be some remnants of the line to see.
Over a hill top we came and looked down onto the neat little harbour of Portree. The quay side is lined with pastel coloured three story houses that are now restaurants and expensive little shops. Moored in the beautiful little harbour are many fishing and pleasure boats painted all sorts of bright colours. The lush green headlands and islands enclose the deep blue water of the harbour so that the water is always quite calm no matter how bad the wind is. On top of a hill overlooking the harbour on one side is a brick tower, called the watch tower, as this is where people come to watch for returning ships. I climbed up here and admired the wonderful view over such a really pretty place. Portree is the biggest town on the island but it is really only a very small place, Stornoway on Lewis was much larger.
© Lynette Regan 21st October 2007
On the dead end road that runs along the coast north of Stornoway we came to the ‘bridge to nowhere’ at the end. This bridge was built soon after WW1 at a time shortly after Lord Leverhulme bought the island in 1919, and had plans to develop it. Because of the trouble he had with the crofters and villagers wanting the land they had been promised for service in the war, the road was never finished and hasn’t been touched in more recent years either. It’s possible to drive over it and its a good solid bridge two lanes wide, a 4wd track carries on for some way. Here, too there is a good walk to the top end of the island and the lighthouse but it’s a very wet track at any time, you need wellington boots up to your hips after all the recent rain.
We did it the easy way, we drove round the road. The first few miles crossing the island is just passing across one big peat bog. All along the way you can see where the peat has been cut leaving ridges and gullies. A great many of the islands residents have a small allotment of peat each and in the spring time they can be seen out cutting and stacking the peat. It is left to dry out over the summer then taken home loose, or in bags, ready for the coming winter. At this time of year the grass, mosses and heather on the bogs is generally a browish colour, whether that is due to the tannin in the peat or the time of year I cannot say. All the streams are the colour of tea from the tannin.
At the top of the island stands the lighthouse overlooking a very rugged piece of coast with ‘sea stacks’ and rocky off shore islands. An icy cold, fierce wind was blowing and the rough sea breakers were crashing into the rocky shore and sending big bits of spume way up past where we were sitting in the car. Took us a few minutes to work out what these lumps of white stuff were that came flying past us. The cliffs are summer breeding grounds for gannets, puffins and fulmars, but none are here now. Don’t blame them, not a good place to be just now:
As we had to travel back down the same route we had driven straight to the top, we stopped off at all the points of interest on the way back down. The 12th century church of St Moluag was our first stop. It’s a very simple little church that was restored in the early 20th century. It has just one small stained glass window in the nave, so with the door shut its very dark inside. There were some stone circles that we tried to see, we drove through the flooded track to get to the parking lot only to find that the walking track was even more flooded so we gave them a miss, there are plenty more standing stones and stone circles to see.
The site of the Del waterwheel and mill was another stop we made. All that remains is the housing for the wheel and part of the race, where the water passed through to turn the wheel. This was a horizontal wheel, not a vertical one. The old mill buildings are there too but all boarded up. Some way further on we came to the ‘standing stone’ at Trusseil. This is just one lone stone that stands about 5m high, must have taken some effort to get it into position.
All along the way we went from one village to the next. Most of the houses were fairly modern, built with render coating and usually painted grey. Plenty of old stone houses left to decay at a fairly rapid pace in this damp climate and lots of old cars left to do the same, they can be seen all around in various stages of rusting away. Sheep wander the streets just like erratic pedestrians; even saw one being taken for a walk on a lead and none too happy about it either.
All through these islands the Gaelic language has been revived and most seem to speak it, all the signs are in both English and Gaelic, but it seems to be that they cannot agree on the spelling as each different map had the place names spelt differently, all are totally unpronounceable anyway. Here the word Gaelic is pronounced very similar to garlic the vegetable.
In the village of Bragar there is a huge arch. It is the jawbone of a mighty blue whale that was washed up on shore back in the whaling days. It had a harpoon through the jawbone, its still there, and when a local blacksmith tried to remove it, it fired and he was badly injured. Now it stands up vertically as a big arch beside the road. Must have been an enormous whale:
An old Norse Mill and kiln have been restored and a 10 mins walk along a wet track took us to it. These are referred to as Norse mills but I did read someplace that its more likely they were introduced from Ireland than from the Nordic countries. This one is in 2 separate buildings. Small stone bothies, stone walls with a thatch or turf roof: Inside one only the pit can be seen over which the kiln would have stood. It was mainly barley that was grown here, and oats, too wet for wheat; and the grain had first to be dried before it could be milled and this was done in this kiln house. Next door was the mill house with the wooden shoot over the 2 quern stones, the top one with a hole in it so that the grain went through it to be ground between the top and the bottom stones, then pushed out into an area where it would have been shovelled into some sort of container. This mill was driven by another horizontal wheel under the mill. Water to power the wheel was led through a race above the mill then dropped down into the wheel housing. It came from a small lochan about 600m away through channels that had been dug. This old mill had been restored in recent years.
A village of ‘black houses’ we came too next. This village, Gearranan, had been occupied until 1973, at which time only a few elderly people were still living in them and they were re-housed in new council houses with indoor plumbing. In 1976 a preservation order was placed on them and through the latter part of the 1990’s they were restored. Now, several of them are let out as self contained holiday cottages, one is an office and information room and another is a hostel run by the Gatliff Trust. This hostel is in much better condition that the one we stayed in one Berneray. They are all built of stone and the roofs are of thatch held down with stones around the bottom edge and with fish netting over all the thatch. It is believed that there has been a village on this site since at least 400AD, perhaps earlier. There was so many people living here in the early 1900’s that it got the name ‘china town’.
One of these types houses that we’d seen early but wasn’t open had been divided into two sections, one for the animals and one for people. From the notice board outside I had read that it had been occupied until the 1960’s and at that time the people had kept chickens and 1 small beast (didn’t say what sort of beast) in the animal side. In the centre of the living quarter had been a peat fire, originally sitting on the earthen floor but in more recent times in some sort of stove.
Carloway Broch was the next place we came too along the coast. A Broch is believed to have been a superior dwelling probably where the landowner lived. The walls are 2 concentric circles, one inside the other, with a gap between wide enough for a stairway to the top or a higher level. The one here is the best preserved one about, almost half of it remains and you can get a pretty fair idea of how it looked. Then the information board has a drawing of what the archaeologists think it should have looked like. An almost beehive shape structure, about 6 to 8m high with the walls gradually sloping inwards: The inner circle had a diameter of around 6 to 7m, and the artists impression puts a pointed roof with a central pole over the centre. A tiny door barely 1m high was the only access, a similar size doorway led to the stairwell between the walls; this was 800mm to 1m wide. It’s believed this one dates from around 200AD.
There are the ruins of many more smaller buildings similar to this, the smaller ones are generally referred to as ‘duns’ and were a small fortified house, now generally just a small pile of rocks. Some beehive houses too, but mostly just a shallow round hole in the ground is all that is to be seen.
Then we came to more stone circles going back 3000BC. These are the Callanish stone circles and the main one here is quite impressive. Most of the stones are still standing. Like the one we saw in the Lake District, the eastern side seems to be flattened, not a true circle. This circle had a line of standing stones leading away from it in each direction, north, south, east and west. The northern stones stand in two lines as though lining a wide roadway. In the centre is a large burial chamber. Archaeologists have found that this complex had been built over many centuries, the circle being the oldest. The burial chamber centuries later and the bodies entombed here had been cremated.
The people at the time the circle was built used to build their fields up high with drainage channels between, these were called ‘lazy beds’. Centuries later, after all the stones had been erected, the remains had been taken from the tombs and ploughed into the ground all around the stones. At this time the earlier raised beds had been ploughed and the channels too, then in more recent centuries the lazy bed system had again been used, but by this time the peat had formed. When the stones had first been erected there wasn’t the extensive peat fields there is now. In the mid 19th Century when James Matheson was having the stones excavated there was 1.5m of peat around them that had to be removed. Underneath the earliest lazy beds an even older drainage ditch has been found.
Two other stone circles we looked at here, one with only 5 stones still standing has a burial chamber in the centre, and the other is nearly a complete circle still standing but with nothing in the centre.
We drove across the bridge onto the little Island of Great Bernera. They call this bridge, the bridge over the Atlantic. Bit like calling the bridge to Bribie Island the bridge over the Pacific. Anyway, on the far side of the island we came to another ‘Iron Age’ House. This one has been constructed on the lines of several that were found in the late 1990’s when beach erosion unearthed them. They lie under the sand of this lovely little beach at Bostadh. These too are from around 400AD: They are excavated into the ground about 1m deep and have stone walls about 1m high. They are not round but more elongated and this one has been given a thatch roof but no trace of the original roofs has been found. Like the Broch it has a tiny entrance door about 1m high and you step down into the house.
Still on the lookout for those elusive otters but none have yet shown themselves:
On the Uig peninsular on the west coast we came across the place where the Uig chessmen were found quite by accident. We had pulled into a small parking area near a beach to have a cup of coffee when we spotted a wooden sculpture of a chessman so I went and read the sign and learnt that the chessmen were found right near this spot and that we could learn more about them in the local museum so we set off to visit it. That wasn’t as straight forward as one might think. When we found the museum it was closed but we could phone one of two people and arrange to see it with them so this we did. I phoned this chap Finlay and then we had to go 4 miles to pick him up and bring him back with us. He let us in and we had a look about.
The Uig chessmen were found in a stone cist covered by a sand dune in 1831 and they are carved from Walrus ivory. They are Norse in origin and probably were carved in Trondheim in Norway in the mid 12th century. Just why they were buried in the sand dunes of Lewis no one will ever know. There are 78 chessmen belonging to 4 different sets and 14 other pieces that are gaming pieces and one belt buckle 64mm (2.5in) long. The pieces range in height from 3.5cm to 10.5cm. They all have very dour expressions on their faces. None of the actual pieces are here still, all we could do was read about them and see some models of them. 11 of the pieces are in some museum in Edinburg and the rest are in the British museum in London.
The museum had quite a good display, an interior of a black house, one of the more modern ones with a fire place against the end wall. There were some seal skins on the floor too and they have quite coarse fur, not soft like some I have seen.
We thanked Finlay and took him home, then carried on our way.
This area is more sparsely populated than further north. It is more hilly too and it does have some lovely light sandy beaches with gently lapping water. They would be great if the air and water temperature were 10˚ to 15˚C warmer. Some nice little rocky islands just offshore: It is quite a pretty area but in winter I think it could be very bleak indeed.
David decided that he would like to see the Garrabost grain mill if possible, he had read about it at the other mill we visited. So we drove out to the village and asked directions from there. By chance we asked at the house of the sister of the man who now runs it. She sent us to see him.
His name is Angus Graham Morrison and he invited us in and told us about the mill. On the living room wall he has some old photos of the mill taken early last century, one with a t-model ford in it. From his computer he copied some material he had written about the mill and some of the photos onto our jump drive so David may put them onto the blog with this.
The mill started working in 1896 and at that time it was powered by a water wheel. Later an oil engine was installed in 1908 and it’s still there now and working. Graham’s grandfather worked in the mill until 1946, and his father from 1930 until he retired. He is now 91, and came down to join us when we went down to have a look at the mill.
Graham showed us the kiln and how the grain is dried first before it can be milled. The grain is laid on a drying bed with a fine mesh base half a ton at a time and the heat from the peat fired kiln passes through the mesh and dries the grain. Then it has to pass through a mill that removes the husk and the dust, next it goes to the other mill where it is ground into flour. The stones that mill the grain into flour must be dressed, when the mill was working full time this was about every two months. This is a major job, and a very exacting one. The top stone has to be lifted and worked on while its upright and the bottom one, it weighs one ton, is left in situ. By dressing I mean that a special design has to be chiselled out of the stone so that the grain is ground just right.
Here they mill barley into flour and it is sold in some of the local stores. They only do a small amount each season now; it’s not a business more of a hobby for Graham who is a retired physics teacher. He generously gave us a bag of the flour and some recipes to try when we get the opportunity.
As we were leaving Graham also told us that wild minks on the island cause havoc with hens. Introduced in the 1950’s to be farmed some have escaped and now are a major pest. They can get through a very small hole and will kill 30 hens overnight.
We thank Graham very much for showing us around his mill. The old photos of the mill, the engine and the name plate are all courtesy of Graham Morrison.
In the cafe in the Stornoway library we tried some ‘barley bannock’ made with the barley flour milled by Graham. It was round, about 1.5cm thick and brown, bit like a thick chapatti, and it had a bit of a malt flavour. It was served with thick clotted cream, just a little sour. Can’t say that I can recommend it, too heavy for my tastes and David wasn’t impressed either.
On our way back south to Tarbert to catch the ferry we took many of the side roads that twisted and turned around the hills and the lochs. We were still on the lookout for those otters so we stopped several times in places where we thought they might be but to no avail. Just aren’t meant to see them.
Just north of Tarbert we took the road along the loch out to the west coast where we came to another lovely wide sandy beach and finally ending at a boat ramp where we could look over to the island of Scarp, just off shore. Along the way we had passed Amhuinnsuidhe Castle. It’s more of a big stately home than a castle and it stands just back for the shore of a small bay. The road runs right past the front door, east bound traffic miss it by inches. A lovely lawn runs down to the stone fence along the shore, and there are stone walls on either side. On the western side we passed under a high stone arch and immediately passed 4 ‘row’ houses that were probably built for the employees. They are now a B and B, the castle though has a sign on the door that it is a private residence.
All the little waterfalls were still gushing over the hillsides and could have run a thousand water wheels with all the rain that had fallen over the past week. It has been too wet for us to do any walks really as the peat is sodden.
A last word about the islands before we leave them: One of the main industries here is the production of Harris Tweed. There are a lot of small places that still seem to be making it. Although named after the island of Harris, the main production is now on Lewis. Apart from this and some fishing there does not seem a lot for the people to do. The summer provides quite a lot of jobs in the tourist and related industries but by now the tourists are a bit thin on the ground and many things have closed for the season so I am at a loss to work out what people do to earn a living. The few sheep and cows most of the crofts have would perhaps provide a bit of a supplementary income but by no means enough to keep a family.
It was a cold windy day that we took the ferry from Tarbert to Uig in Skye, a crossing of less than two hours on a busy Saturday. The ferry had nearly a full load of cars, it is the end of mid term holidays for some schools, and there were many families on board.
First thing I noticed about Uig were the trees. On the outer islands there are no trees apart for a few planted pine forests and very occasionally people have some wind blown spruce in their gardens. Now, back on Skye we were greeted with a cluster of trees in the valley wearing their autumn colours. Up on the hillside overlooking the town we could see Frasers Folly a brick round tower two or three stories high, and on the skyline we saw another standing stone:
Flora MacDonald who helped Bonny Prince Charley escape from Eriskay and brought him to Skye dressed as her maid is buried here on this Island in a small churchyard a few miles north of Uig. There is a large monument topped with a Celtic cross on her grave, she died in 1790. Also in this church yard is an old grave slab of a knight in Mail. It’s on the grave of “Angus of the wind”, it is said that he stole it from another grave, possibly a kings and brought it here on his back ready for his own grave.
A small stone age cavern was found in this same area only a few years ago. It is narrow and about 7 to 8 metres long, low, and lined with stones. As it has a lot of water in the bottom we didn’t venture very far into it but it seems to have small side caverns off the main tunnel. It’s all lined with stones and archaeologists think that it was used to store dairy products. For want of a better theory I expect. Nearby are two round hollows in the ground that are the bases of two old round houses from the same period. The cavern was only found when one of the lentils collapsed and suddenly there was a hole in the ground where there shouldn’t be one.
Further up the coast we came to what remains of Duntulm castle. It was built on a high knoll overlooking the sea with cliffs on two sides. There really is much to see, a few walls are still standing but there are some big piles of rubble too. Much of the stone has been carted off to use in newer buildings. It was once the home of the Macdonalds but they abandoned it in 1732.
On this northern end of the island there are some very craggy mountains and steep bluffs, it’s a very picturesque area. Little tiny villages that are hidden then you come across them suddenly when you come round a bend in the narrow road. Often only three or four houses: The sheep here have the same attitude that they did on the outer islands too, they stand on the road or amble off to the side at their leisure, never in a hurry, and are often lying on the edge of the tarmac watching the passing traffic slow to almost a standstill as it negotiates its way around them. We have seen the sad remains of one or two that misjudged the attitude of passing drivers.
One day we did some walking in the Quiraing, these are those craggy mountains in the north east. A pointy pinnacle called ‘the needle’ is one; an outcrop is called the prison, and a flat piece ‘the table’. The sign at the start said 2.8 miles but we didn’t know what place was 2.8miles. The walk was a relatively easy one, some short steepish bits but no scrambling. Generally it was a steady climb. Some parts of the track were fairly muddy but they could be avoided and there were plenty of cow and sheep droppings all along the way, not always possible to avoid. We went first in one direction and after a few kilometres came out on a high peak with a great view and a vertical cliff edge. Seeing another higher vantage point not far away we made for that and nearly got blown off the mountain the wind was so strong but we made it to the top. The view over the whole of the northern part of the Island was brilliant, well worth the climb.
At a stile we met some young fellows with a map and found that the needle and the prison were off in the other direction so we made our way back about 2k’s to a junction of tracks and headed off up the ridge to the south. As we came over a saddle between the main range and an outcrop we found ourselves almost right below the needle though the view was better from further along the track. Another ½ a k brought us to another side track, this one up onto the ‘prison’ outcrop. Not that we could quite work out the ‘prison’ in this outcrop. I went on up this path by myself David didn’t feel as if he could do that bit extra, we still had several k’s to go back to the car but mostly downhill. Anyway I climbed up this track that eventually brought me out onto the edge of a drop off where I could look down on where I’d left David. Another cliff beside me was part of the walls of the ‘prison’ I think. In places on this track the wind was ferocious. When I got back to the junction David had already left on his way back down, he had got too cold just waiting for me. Back at the car he had the kettle just about boiling when I arrived. I needed that cuppa.
Someone we’d met had also told us that the track led from the car park where we’d parked to one at the top, and that was the 2.8miles. We had got to within 1 mile of that top car park. The whole walk would have been easier from it too as it was on about the same level as the higher parts of the main track. Still we got our exercise.
Further down the coast we came to Kilt Rock. This is a basalt formation in the cliffs over the sea. The vertical basalt columns are the pleats and the layers of silt stone and Jurassic sandstone are the cross coloured threads on the plaid. Well, that’s what the pamphlet says; just have to use your imagination. Between the viewpoint and the basalt columns there is an impressive waterfall. It drops straight over the cliffs into the sea, probably about 50m or so and the wind catches the water and blows it back up. This is Mealt waterfall.
A bit further along the road and right beside it is Lealt waterfall; it falls into a gorge that then flows a further 400m to the sea. Here we followed another path a short way and come to a notice board and learnt that immediately below us on the shore was the ruins of a crushing plant for Diatomite. This diatomite was mined 3 miles inland and brought to this point on some sort of rail wagon that people pushed along. Nothing to say how they got it down the cliff, we would have thought a shute of some sort but seeing as these Scotts were using human power, not horse or oxen to pull the rail wagon we’re none too sure that they were bright enough to think of using a shute to get it down the cliff. It was crushed at the bottom then loaded onto small boats and taken out to be reloaded onto ships, all by hand.
Diatomite is a whitish claylike substance formed from microscopic diatom shells and is used as an insulation for ships boilers, filters for beer, and in dynamite. It was mined on the edge of a small loch and we tried to go in there but the rough track was a bit much for the little car. We think that this track must also have been where the rail line ran as we could see no other alternative. The mine worked from 1896 to at least 1914 perhaps later, so you would think there would be some remnants of the line to see.
Over a hill top we came and looked down onto the neat little harbour of Portree. The quay side is lined with pastel coloured three story houses that are now restaurants and expensive little shops. Moored in the beautiful little harbour are many fishing and pleasure boats painted all sorts of bright colours. The lush green headlands and islands enclose the deep blue water of the harbour so that the water is always quite calm no matter how bad the wind is. On top of a hill overlooking the harbour on one side is a brick tower, called the watch tower, as this is where people come to watch for returning ships. I climbed up here and admired the wonderful view over such a really pretty place. Portree is the biggest town on the island but it is really only a very small place, Stornoway on Lewis was much larger.
© Lynette Regan 21st October 2007
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Episode 17
Episode 17
We really wanted to see Otters: At most of the causeways there are signs ‘Otters Crossing’ but as yet we still haven’t seen one. Several different places I’d read about where otter frequent we’d visited all to no avail. So we left South Uist without having seen one.
The next island north is Benbecula, quite a small island and no big hills. We could have done a walk one of the highest points on the island but it was really too wet underfoot to do it comfortably, and the weather so inclement that the view would not have been much anyway. As we drove up the west coast of the island we passed along more white sandy beaches with plenty of seaweed lying on there. The otters are not on this side of the islands, there is surf here as this is the North Atlantic, they prefer the other side in the calmer water and like the salt water lochs too. They do go into the fresh water lochs but usually only in summer to hunt for eels.
When we saw a sign for the internet in a large building we went in there to find that it was a cafe with a small shop and a room with interesting photos and information especially about the missile range that is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, about the walls. David asked about the internet and found that he could use our laptop and access the net through the wireless connection for no extra cost if we bought a coffee each. We considered that an extremely good offer. Our coffee came in a lovely fine china pot with matching cups, saucers, mild jug and sugar bowl, it was very elegant indeed.
Later we got in conversation with the lady who owns the place, her name is Mairi (Maree), and she told us that the building was once the stable when the big landowners owned most of the land on the Islands. It was split up into small holdings after WW1 when the men were promised land in return for fighting in the war. However, the promise was not fulfilled without a battle on their part and it was several years and much trouble later when most got their land. A small part of one wing has still to be renovated and you can see how it was when still used as stables. At lunch time seeing that we were still here we had a lovely bowl of home made ‘scotch broth’ each, just the thing on a day like this, looking outside was not inspiring, it was foggy and drizzling.
This Island is where most of the military personal live that are connected with the missile range on South Uist, boosting the population by about 1200. They seem to live mainly in the north-western part of the island. In that area there are the few supermarkets and some other shops, even a small garage. We went for another walk out to Seal Point and did manage to see just one seal along with a lovely grey heron. A family we met here said that otters live here too, but they were avoiding us.
Benbecula is the dividing point between the Catholic south and the Protestant north in these islands:
As we left the island over yet another causeway we kept an eagle eye out for those elusive otters but didn’t see any. Now we were on North Uist, or at least I think we were though to me it seemed like a separate island. We came to a small village and looked down on a busy little boat harbour. I read a sign that said the harbour had been built as part of an EU development scheme for the Islands. The fishing boats that use this harbour fish for shell fish using mainly creels, and flat and round fish using the long line method. Lobster, crab, and crayfish are exported from here alive, they are taken in special trucks that have fresh aerated seawater tanks so that the product is delivered to the markets in Europe alive. Haddock, plaice, ling and skate are the fish that are caught here. In the small bay there is a salmon farm too, some of the salmon here is sent to local smoke houses for smoking whist other is marketed as fresh salmon.
We came to the ruins of on old temple, Trinity Temple. It dates from the 12th Century I think, though the sign didn’t say so. It was enlarged in the 13th century and rebuilt in the 19th but obviously not all that well as it’s only a ruin now. It could not have been very large either, three rooms is all that we can see. There are many headstones in the graveyard and some of them date from the mid 20th century. All around these islands we see houses, castles and churches that are ruins, derelict or just empty, some would make lovely restoration projects yet it seems more the thing to build a new house from scratch.
Another stone circle here too, this one is on ground that has been levelled out of the hillside and just above a loch. Only small stones really with the tallest about 2m high, and more of an oval than a circle: On the same hill but much higher up and facing a different direction is another stone cairn with a large burial chamber. Both are believed to date from 2000 to 4000BC. An interesting thing I read about this cairn is that it was built before the peat formed and has probably sunk about 2 metres into the peat that surrounds it. Most of these islands have big peat bogs that have been cut or are still being cut. Even up the hill sides there is peat, that is what makes walking such a pain as it holds the water and you are forever walking through wet, boggy ground or doing your best to avoid it. Along the road sides you see peat all bagged up ready to be taken home.
In the little town of Loch Maddan we visited a museum for a local music group called Runrig. They formed back in 1973 and are still going though I’m not sure any of the original members are still in the group. They seem quite popular in Scotland, Denmark, and Germany. They sing in Gaelic as well as English and are not mainstream pop, more of a pop/folk music group.
We did a few more short walks in different places one took us past a field with several donkeys that thought they might like to come and be friendly then decided against it when they got to within 20m. Near here too, we came across 4 old stone houses that would not take a great deal to repair, they would make a great backpackers hostel, they are near a pleasant beach and good walking spots. On another walk around a nature reserve we kept a very sharp lookout for otters as someone had written in the book that they had seen two the previous day, but they hadn’t said where around at least 3k of coast that the otters had been spotted. Needless to say we didn’t see any. Apparently you have to have the tide just right, about 2 to 4 hours before the high tide is a good time. At least that is when they are supposed to be most active, personally I think the little beggars are avoiding me. We did see some graylag geese and one other little bird, we usually see more wildlife on any of our walks.
This reserve is especially aimed at restoring habitat for the corn bunting and the corncrake both very endangered species. The corncrake will have gone off to southern Africa by now but the corn bunting should still be about and it may have been one of these that we saw. Both these birds need long grass in which to hide and nest so the reserve and local crofters are working together to provide a habitat for it and also staking hay in stooks instead of making silage, as this provides food the birds can access. The golden bumble bee is very endangered and another bee too that borrows a hive in the sand, these too are benefiting from the crofters reverting to older methods of hay making. On the whole it makes little difference to the crofters as most have employment elsewhere because the croft cannot generate enough income to live on.
These crofters grow rye, barely, and oats, rotating the crop each year. It is grown on the sand dunes that are naturally covered in Marram grass and if not cultivated this grass provides good grazing for both cows, usually longhorned highland cattle with very shaggy coats and the ever present sheep.
Crossing yet another causeway we came onto the island of Berneray and did another couple of short walks here too. We also stayed in a small hostel that was in one of the thatched roof stone houses. It was very musty smelling and damp despite the heating, no hot water would come out of the shower, the little heaters over the sinks both decided to leak profusely, and the kitchen had a really most peculiar smell so I wouldn’t recommend it, however, as it was a very wild windy and wet night it was better than being in the tent or the car. Our other 4 fellow hostellers were a diverse group so that we had quite a pleasant evening.
We took yet another ferry from Berneray to Leverburgh in Harris: This was a very pleasant trip on a sunny Sunday afternoon. As we neared Harris the ferry weaved its way about several small islands as it negotiated it way through the narrow twisting channel into the little boat harbour at Leverburgh.
We drove the 2 or 3 miles to the end of the road with the intention of walking to the southern tip of the island but the track that is quite boggy in the driest of times was very wet so we just took the short walk along a lovely grassy well made track to the next little village of Roghadal where we had a look at another old church. This one, St Clements, was probably finished in 1549, it not certain, but the eastern end was certainly finished in 1528 as that is when the tomb was made and decorated for Alexander Macleod. He was clan chief and had the church and his tomb built; there is lovely carving about the tomb too, little panels representing different religious scenes. The one I liked was of a saint who guards the entrance to heaven and the devil weighing souls to decide which way they should be sent; up to heaven or down to hell. Alexander Macleod died in 1545 or 47, no one is sure about that either, his son William who succeeded him as chief died in 1551, the next clan chief died in 1557; all are buried in the church. The roof had been redone several times over the centuries but the stone walls are original I believe. We climbed to the top of the tower for a view over the lock and out towards some small offshore islands.
The weather changed and turned very wet so much so that we couldn’t do any walks because its just too wet underfoot. As we drove up the island of Harris we saw hundreds of little waterfalls as the excess water cascaded down the hill sides and over embankments, the boggy peat marshes were awash, the gale force wind was blowing the tops off the waves and sometimes the spume blew across the road. In one place we came to a tourist information shelter the size of a phone box and several sheep were sheltering inside, it was quite funny. I have never before seen it so wet that the sheep are looking for cover.
A recently built monument to local men who fought for land reform stands by the road side not far from Stornoway. In the late 1800’s a woman who owned 42,000 acres of land on the island throw all the crofters and villagers off her land, then imported deer and started a deer park. This was devastating for the local people who were already very poor anyway, there wasn’t much work and most tried to get by scratching a living from the few acres of a croft. These few men came onto the deer farm one day and killed a few deer then roasted them and ate them. They were arrested but later acquitted by the Scottish High Court. This was the start of the struggle for land reform that lasted until well after the 1st world war.
The town of Stornoway is the largest town in the Outer Hebrides with a population of around 9000. The older part of the town clusters around the harbour but the more modern suburbs have spread out into the countryside. The harbour has a few fishing boats moored in it, but nothing like there used to be before the quotas were introduced. It also has a ferry terminal; the ferry from here goes to Ullapool on the mainland. The day that had started out so wet had suddenly cleared and the sun shone from a bright blue sky, just every now and again a heavy shower would suddenly come over and dampen things again.
While here we visited the water wheel that has been reconstructed on the site of a former one that burnt down in the late 1800’s. This one now supplies power to the castle grounds, it stands on the edge of Lews Castle grounds. Here too, is a lot of information about the castle that was built in 1863 by James Matheson who had bought the Island of Lewis in 1844. This James Matheson made his personal fortune from the tea and opium trade in the Far East. He joined forces with Jardine to create the company Jardine Matheson which still trades today with a slightly altered name. There was information on other mills around the island and something that I found extremely interesting is that waterwheels using modern technology have been installed in small villages in Sri Lanka where they power many homes in an area that didn’t have electricity previously.
The info here also told about the big land owners installing waterwheel powered grain mills then making the local farmers bring their grain along to them to be milled for a 10% fee paid in the grain that was milled. Prior to this the farmers milled their own grain often using quern stones, but in many cases these were smashed to force the farmers to use the landlord owned mills.
We walked around the castle grounds quite a way. They are heavily wooded with large trees like oak, alder, Scottish pine, spruce and larch, and there are huge banks of rhododendrons too that must be a lovely blaze of colour in the spring. It is quite something to see such big trees growing here in these almost treeless islands. Matheson imported massive amounts of topsoil from the mainland to establish his gardens and woodland. The castle is more of a big stately home than a castle and it is closed at present. I did read it was being renovated year ago, but it doesn’t appear to have been completed.
In the old loom shop we found a very wide range of Harris tweeds on show and for sale. I don’t think I have been in such a small shop with so much stuff for a long time. You could buy the tweed and sew it yourself or purchase any one of a wide range of items already made. I find wool rather coarse and can’t wear it next to my skin, and these tweed fabrics are very coarse. Wool from the sheep here is not fine like the merino wool from Australia, it is quite coarse. The island of Harris just to the south of Lewis is the home of the Harris Tweed.
© Lynette Regan 15th October 2007
We really wanted to see Otters: At most of the causeways there are signs ‘Otters Crossing’ but as yet we still haven’t seen one. Several different places I’d read about where otter frequent we’d visited all to no avail. So we left South Uist without having seen one.
The next island north is Benbecula, quite a small island and no big hills. We could have done a walk one of the highest points on the island but it was really too wet underfoot to do it comfortably, and the weather so inclement that the view would not have been much anyway. As we drove up the west coast of the island we passed along more white sandy beaches with plenty of seaweed lying on there. The otters are not on this side of the islands, there is surf here as this is the North Atlantic, they prefer the other side in the calmer water and like the salt water lochs too. They do go into the fresh water lochs but usually only in summer to hunt for eels.
When we saw a sign for the internet in a large building we went in there to find that it was a cafe with a small shop and a room with interesting photos and information especially about the missile range that is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, about the walls. David asked about the internet and found that he could use our laptop and access the net through the wireless connection for no extra cost if we bought a coffee each. We considered that an extremely good offer. Our coffee came in a lovely fine china pot with matching cups, saucers, mild jug and sugar bowl, it was very elegant indeed.
Later we got in conversation with the lady who owns the place, her name is Mairi (Maree), and she told us that the building was once the stable when the big landowners owned most of the land on the Islands. It was split up into small holdings after WW1 when the men were promised land in return for fighting in the war. However, the promise was not fulfilled without a battle on their part and it was several years and much trouble later when most got their land. A small part of one wing has still to be renovated and you can see how it was when still used as stables. At lunch time seeing that we were still here we had a lovely bowl of home made ‘scotch broth’ each, just the thing on a day like this, looking outside was not inspiring, it was foggy and drizzling.
This Island is where most of the military personal live that are connected with the missile range on South Uist, boosting the population by about 1200. They seem to live mainly in the north-western part of the island. In that area there are the few supermarkets and some other shops, even a small garage. We went for another walk out to Seal Point and did manage to see just one seal along with a lovely grey heron. A family we met here said that otters live here too, but they were avoiding us.
Benbecula is the dividing point between the Catholic south and the Protestant north in these islands:
As we left the island over yet another causeway we kept an eagle eye out for those elusive otters but didn’t see any. Now we were on North Uist, or at least I think we were though to me it seemed like a separate island. We came to a small village and looked down on a busy little boat harbour. I read a sign that said the harbour had been built as part of an EU development scheme for the Islands. The fishing boats that use this harbour fish for shell fish using mainly creels, and flat and round fish using the long line method. Lobster, crab, and crayfish are exported from here alive, they are taken in special trucks that have fresh aerated seawater tanks so that the product is delivered to the markets in Europe alive. Haddock, plaice, ling and skate are the fish that are caught here. In the small bay there is a salmon farm too, some of the salmon here is sent to local smoke houses for smoking whist other is marketed as fresh salmon.
We came to the ruins of on old temple, Trinity Temple. It dates from the 12th Century I think, though the sign didn’t say so. It was enlarged in the 13th century and rebuilt in the 19th but obviously not all that well as it’s only a ruin now. It could not have been very large either, three rooms is all that we can see. There are many headstones in the graveyard and some of them date from the mid 20th century. All around these islands we see houses, castles and churches that are ruins, derelict or just empty, some would make lovely restoration projects yet it seems more the thing to build a new house from scratch.
Another stone circle here too, this one is on ground that has been levelled out of the hillside and just above a loch. Only small stones really with the tallest about 2m high, and more of an oval than a circle: On the same hill but much higher up and facing a different direction is another stone cairn with a large burial chamber. Both are believed to date from 2000 to 4000BC. An interesting thing I read about this cairn is that it was built before the peat formed and has probably sunk about 2 metres into the peat that surrounds it. Most of these islands have big peat bogs that have been cut or are still being cut. Even up the hill sides there is peat, that is what makes walking such a pain as it holds the water and you are forever walking through wet, boggy ground or doing your best to avoid it. Along the road sides you see peat all bagged up ready to be taken home.
In the little town of Loch Maddan we visited a museum for a local music group called Runrig. They formed back in 1973 and are still going though I’m not sure any of the original members are still in the group. They seem quite popular in Scotland, Denmark, and Germany. They sing in Gaelic as well as English and are not mainstream pop, more of a pop/folk music group.
We did a few more short walks in different places one took us past a field with several donkeys that thought they might like to come and be friendly then decided against it when they got to within 20m. Near here too, we came across 4 old stone houses that would not take a great deal to repair, they would make a great backpackers hostel, they are near a pleasant beach and good walking spots. On another walk around a nature reserve we kept a very sharp lookout for otters as someone had written in the book that they had seen two the previous day, but they hadn’t said where around at least 3k of coast that the otters had been spotted. Needless to say we didn’t see any. Apparently you have to have the tide just right, about 2 to 4 hours before the high tide is a good time. At least that is when they are supposed to be most active, personally I think the little beggars are avoiding me. We did see some graylag geese and one other little bird, we usually see more wildlife on any of our walks.
This reserve is especially aimed at restoring habitat for the corn bunting and the corncrake both very endangered species. The corncrake will have gone off to southern Africa by now but the corn bunting should still be about and it may have been one of these that we saw. Both these birds need long grass in which to hide and nest so the reserve and local crofters are working together to provide a habitat for it and also staking hay in stooks instead of making silage, as this provides food the birds can access. The golden bumble bee is very endangered and another bee too that borrows a hive in the sand, these too are benefiting from the crofters reverting to older methods of hay making. On the whole it makes little difference to the crofters as most have employment elsewhere because the croft cannot generate enough income to live on.
These crofters grow rye, barely, and oats, rotating the crop each year. It is grown on the sand dunes that are naturally covered in Marram grass and if not cultivated this grass provides good grazing for both cows, usually longhorned highland cattle with very shaggy coats and the ever present sheep.
Crossing yet another causeway we came onto the island of Berneray and did another couple of short walks here too. We also stayed in a small hostel that was in one of the thatched roof stone houses. It was very musty smelling and damp despite the heating, no hot water would come out of the shower, the little heaters over the sinks both decided to leak profusely, and the kitchen had a really most peculiar smell so I wouldn’t recommend it, however, as it was a very wild windy and wet night it was better than being in the tent or the car. Our other 4 fellow hostellers were a diverse group so that we had quite a pleasant evening.
We took yet another ferry from Berneray to Leverburgh in Harris: This was a very pleasant trip on a sunny Sunday afternoon. As we neared Harris the ferry weaved its way about several small islands as it negotiated it way through the narrow twisting channel into the little boat harbour at Leverburgh.
We drove the 2 or 3 miles to the end of the road with the intention of walking to the southern tip of the island but the track that is quite boggy in the driest of times was very wet so we just took the short walk along a lovely grassy well made track to the next little village of Roghadal where we had a look at another old church. This one, St Clements, was probably finished in 1549, it not certain, but the eastern end was certainly finished in 1528 as that is when the tomb was made and decorated for Alexander Macleod. He was clan chief and had the church and his tomb built; there is lovely carving about the tomb too, little panels representing different religious scenes. The one I liked was of a saint who guards the entrance to heaven and the devil weighing souls to decide which way they should be sent; up to heaven or down to hell. Alexander Macleod died in 1545 or 47, no one is sure about that either, his son William who succeeded him as chief died in 1551, the next clan chief died in 1557; all are buried in the church. The roof had been redone several times over the centuries but the stone walls are original I believe. We climbed to the top of the tower for a view over the lock and out towards some small offshore islands.
The weather changed and turned very wet so much so that we couldn’t do any walks because its just too wet underfoot. As we drove up the island of Harris we saw hundreds of little waterfalls as the excess water cascaded down the hill sides and over embankments, the boggy peat marshes were awash, the gale force wind was blowing the tops off the waves and sometimes the spume blew across the road. In one place we came to a tourist information shelter the size of a phone box and several sheep were sheltering inside, it was quite funny. I have never before seen it so wet that the sheep are looking for cover.
A recently built monument to local men who fought for land reform stands by the road side not far from Stornoway. In the late 1800’s a woman who owned 42,000 acres of land on the island throw all the crofters and villagers off her land, then imported deer and started a deer park. This was devastating for the local people who were already very poor anyway, there wasn’t much work and most tried to get by scratching a living from the few acres of a croft. These few men came onto the deer farm one day and killed a few deer then roasted them and ate them. They were arrested but later acquitted by the Scottish High Court. This was the start of the struggle for land reform that lasted until well after the 1st world war.
The town of Stornoway is the largest town in the Outer Hebrides with a population of around 9000. The older part of the town clusters around the harbour but the more modern suburbs have spread out into the countryside. The harbour has a few fishing boats moored in it, but nothing like there used to be before the quotas were introduced. It also has a ferry terminal; the ferry from here goes to Ullapool on the mainland. The day that had started out so wet had suddenly cleared and the sun shone from a bright blue sky, just every now and again a heavy shower would suddenly come over and dampen things again.
While here we visited the water wheel that has been reconstructed on the site of a former one that burnt down in the late 1800’s. This one now supplies power to the castle grounds, it stands on the edge of Lews Castle grounds. Here too, is a lot of information about the castle that was built in 1863 by James Matheson who had bought the Island of Lewis in 1844. This James Matheson made his personal fortune from the tea and opium trade in the Far East. He joined forces with Jardine to create the company Jardine Matheson which still trades today with a slightly altered name. There was information on other mills around the island and something that I found extremely interesting is that waterwheels using modern technology have been installed in small villages in Sri Lanka where they power many homes in an area that didn’t have electricity previously.
The info here also told about the big land owners installing waterwheel powered grain mills then making the local farmers bring their grain along to them to be milled for a 10% fee paid in the grain that was milled. Prior to this the farmers milled their own grain often using quern stones, but in many cases these were smashed to force the farmers to use the landlord owned mills.
We walked around the castle grounds quite a way. They are heavily wooded with large trees like oak, alder, Scottish pine, spruce and larch, and there are huge banks of rhododendrons too that must be a lovely blaze of colour in the spring. It is quite something to see such big trees growing here in these almost treeless islands. Matheson imported massive amounts of topsoil from the mainland to establish his gardens and woodland. The castle is more of a big stately home than a castle and it is closed at present. I did read it was being renovated year ago, but it doesn’t appear to have been completed.
In the old loom shop we found a very wide range of Harris tweeds on show and for sale. I don’t think I have been in such a small shop with so much stuff for a long time. You could buy the tweed and sew it yourself or purchase any one of a wide range of items already made. I find wool rather coarse and can’t wear it next to my skin, and these tweed fabrics are very coarse. Wool from the sheep here is not fine like the merino wool from Australia, it is quite coarse. The island of Harris just to the south of Lewis is the home of the Harris Tweed.
© Lynette Regan 15th October 2007
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Episode 14
Episode 14
So now we are back in England. We stayed with Heather nearly a week this time. We did plan to go to Cornwall to see the Keoghs again but that plan had to be cancelled at the last minute due to the untimely death of a friend there.
David decided that he would like to visit the Scottish Islands so with this in mind we set out one sunny morning. This being late September the weather was certainly getting much cooler. I had been going for a morning walk in shorts but usually wearing a light pullover, so that is what I was wearing when we left.
We headed west through the smaller towns of Midhurst and Petersfield then on to Winchester and Salisbury. This is a pretty drive through the countryside that we have done a few times in the past. It’s mainly rolling hills with plenty of patches of woodland and fields of cultivation or grazing cattle or sheep. The trees in the woods are beginning to get their autumn tones now with some gold and russet coloured leaves appearing. The road wends it way around the hills and crosses streams on little humped backed bridges.
As we approached Salisbury the spire of the cathedral is quite the dominating feature. On this occasion we didn’t stop in the city but continued on our way now heading northwest towards Bath but as the afternoon traffic through the towns began to build up and with heavy rain threatening we took the motorway for quite a distance with only a couple of small delays through Birmingham. We managed to miss most of the rain too. Then we turned west and camped near a small village in which we had seen a lovely old church that sadly was locked so we couldn’t see inside. We were near the Welsh border.
After taking the motorway again to avoid traffic holdups through Liverpool or Manchester we turned east near Preston and went into the Forest of Bowland area with moors and fells that are quite lovely and you would never think that you really are only a few miles from a huge city like Manchester. With high steep mountains and narrow valleys the very narrow road twists around clinging to the sides of the mountains. There were a few patches of forest, mostly pine or spruce, but also some other deciduous trees beginning to wear their autumn colours in the valleys.
At one point we pulled into a layby and there in front of us was a group of people flying model gliders. They were interesting to watch as their operators were no amateurs. There were 5 gliders in the air together and some were doing loop the loops whilst others did barrel rolls, it was good entertainment while we waited for our jug to boil and make a cup of coffee.
Some of the fields were open grazing but others were covered in Heather, they were divided mainly by stone walls in various stages of repair. Whilst most were in quite reasonable order, some were broken and repaired quite hastily it seems, with barb wire, or whatever other material was at hand.
Then we made our way to the Lake District. This is one of my favourite areas as it is with a great many people, it is just so picturesque. It too has steep mountains and narrow valleys and twisting narrow roads, but far more tourists than in the forest of Bowland. In summer it must be hell to try and drive around here, one car has to find a place to pull off for another to pass, then there are also a lot of cyclists and people walking and there isn’t even enough room to pass them unless they stand off to one side. The busses and big delivery trucks keep the road side foliage well pruned by rubbing past it all the time.
There are a great many walks here but David wasn’t really feeling up to much in the way of walking so we wended our way round some narrow roads. The houses and fences are built of a dark stone, probably slate and even many of the new houses are built using the same material. Here, everything looks in fairly good repair; probably more effort is put into keeping everything looking good because it is a popular tourist spot.
One of the lakes we drove along the shore of is Coniston Water, David remarked that this is the lake where Donald Campbell was killed attempting to break the water speed record in the 1960’s, for those of us who are old enough to remember who he was. There were no boats out on the water as we passed but a couple of marinas on the other side looked to have plenty of resident boats. The road goes within a couple of metres of the waters edge in places with woodland on both sides of the road.
We called into Wray castle but it was closed so we couldn’t go inside and likewise the lovely stone church nearby. The castle is in very good repair as it is owned now by the National Trust. Beatrix Potter’s cottage is another place we tried to visit only to find it was closed too; we weren’t having much luck.
Ambleside is probably the prettiest place in the District and it was packed with tourists. There wasn’t anywhere reasonably close to the town to park the car. Its a shame really as it is such a pretty place and I would have loved to take some photos of it. The winding narrow streets with the grey houses and brightly coloured window and flower boxes: Most houses are two and three story and open right onto the street. Ambleside is on Lake Windermere.
Making our way towards Keswick we took the road up the Vale of St John and came to a quarry and mining museum at the end of the road. Here we found a great many old cranes all standing idle gathering rust. The quarry was an old stone quarry where local building stone was dug. The museum had a geology display mainly. Not far from here we came to Castle Rigg, an old stone circle dating from Neolithic/early bronze age, 4000 to 2500 BC. A mini sort of stone henge: It’s not a true circle being more oval in shape and flattened on the eastern end. It has a small square laid out within it at that end too. The stones vary in size from well over 2m high to small ones a couple of men might have managed. I don’t know how deep into the ground they go but they are packed in with small stones and dirt. It is believed that this circle was used for special ceremonies and also to tell the seasons but quite how they have reached this conclusion I cannot say.
We did stop in Keswick for a while and had a look about. It too was crowded with tourists but it isn’t quite as pretty as Ambleside, it is on Derwent Water. As we walked around we found that some of the shops were having end of season sales and I got a good pair of hiking boots to replace the ones I’ve been wearing that now leak and also a pair of new warm waterproof gloves; I may need them soon.
With rain threatening we drove on out of the Lake District and on up to Cockermouth. Quit suddenly you leave the mountains behind and are in very flat farming country. Can’t say that Cockermouth has much to offer but someone is bound to disagree. As we drove along the south coast of Solway Firth we passed several camps of Gypsies’. One lot had an old wooden gypsy caravan but using a modern pick-up truck to tow it.
When we came to the small Finglanrigg Wood nature reserve we stopped and walked through it. It’s secondary growth woodland, not been touched for about 150 years. It contains a peat marsh that has at one time had the peat cut from it but has now returned to being a marsh. Although it is only 97 hectares it’s a vital home to a number of birds and the native red squirrel. This squirrel is under threat as the grey imported one is taking over. The number of oak trees here is controlled leaving plenty of rowan trees, birch and scots pine, all vital for the red squirrel. Too many oak trees and the grey squirrel will move in and soon the red squirrel disappears. Unfortunately we didn’t see any squirrels but we did manage to see two red deer. Heard plenty of birds but of course Lyn didn’t get to see them either.
Thought we would have a look at Hadrian’s Wall or at least what is left of it, while we were in this area. The Roman Emperor Hadrian (76AD to 138AD) had this wall built during his reign. It was constructed during the 120’s and it’s believed that he visited the site in 122 in the early part of the construction. His aim was to consolidate the empire and to keep out the marauding Scots that the Romans called Barbarians. The Roman soldiers here were Auxiliary troop, which means that they were not Roman citizens. The Roman Legionnaires were the troops that were Roman citizens; the Auxiliary troops were give Roman citizenship at the end of their 25 year tour of duty if they survived.
The wall was two metres high with a castellated top, and for much of the way it was built along the top of dolerite cliffs just a couple of metres back from the edge. It was about 1m wide and well constructed of stone. On the steep slopes of gullies it was stepped up the slopes. The Romans were really good stone masons and excellent builders. This is no ‘great wall of China’ but it did stretch for some 80 miles. Every 1/3 of a Roman mile there was a watch tower and there were many forts along the way. Some remnants of many still remain.
We started with a visit to the Roman Army Museum. Here we watched a film about the wall and how it would have looked at the time of its construction. It explained the construction and the reasons for it. From an aerial view you can see many places where there has been a fort at some time, the shape being clearly visible even if it’s just grazing land now and covered in sheep. In another room a man gave us a talk and demonstration on all the things a Roman soldier wore. From his helmet and armour and shield, the cloak he wore under the armour, his weapons to the sandals and boots with studs that he wore on his feet. It was really very informative.
On display were many items that have been found in the area over time. A lot of iron tools some similar to those still in use today, plenty of leather items, mainly boots and sandals, but also bags and even a shield for a horses head. Many Roman coins, and lots of pottery and household items. A few small pieces of jewellery and some carved stone tablets.
At three different places we went and had a look at the wall and walked along it for a bit. One was quite a steep climb up a hill. You don’t actually walk on the wall but alongside it. What we though was really cheeky though is that at two of the three places we stopped at you have to pay to park the car, at least £1.
Probably the most important site we visited along the way is the site of the old Roman Fort and town of Vindolanda. Archaeological excavations are on going here, started some 30 or so years ago and expected to take another 200 years to finish the job, they only work on it from April till the end of August.
Several forts have been uncovered here. The earliest ones being built of wood: In this climate wooden structures would not have lasted very long, only about 8 years so then a new clay floor was laid and the next fort built on that, and so on: About 4 wooden forts were followed by a couple of stone forts. The foundations we could see were of the last of the stone forts and many of the houses and shops of the civilian town that had sprung up around the fort.
Up to 4000 people are believed to have lived here at one time, during the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD; and the whole place became abandoned soon after the fall of the Roman Empire in the 4th or 5th century AD, I’m not sure just when exactly. The soldiers here often took wives from the local inhabitants and those wives and families lived in the village next to the fort. Merchants and tradespeople would move here too because the soldiers were paid well and had money to spend and the families had to obtain their daily needs somehow. So a whole economy grew around the forts. With the fall of the empire came a very hazardous life of raids and fighting so people left the area.
For around 1000 years virtually no one lived in the area, then when things became more stable in the early 17th century small crofters began moving back into the area. They were often tenant farmers for the big estates and were allowed to have a few animals of their own and a small amount of land on which to grow some fruit and vegetables. The tiny cottages they had with barely two rooms, one for the animals in winter and the other to live in, with a loft above where stuff was stored and where any children slept were much poorer quality than the Roman houses of 1000 years earlier. The Roman houses had running water outside and probably under floor heating, glass in the windows and ornaments from Italy, and they had good public bath houses. The only thing the crofters cottages had the Romans didn’t is a chimney for the fireplace.
All that we could see of the excavations are the foundations of the buildings and some of the drains the water flowed along, the Romans had brick and wooden pipes to carry their water. There are the remains of two bath houses and a commanders (centurion) house, the barracks and the east and northern gates and a large number of civilian houses. Even a small church from the latter part of the Empire after Christianity was adopted. Down by the stream is a reconstructed temple, merchants shop, and a house.
In the museum the main feature here are the wooden tablets that have been found at this site. They give a very direct insight into life at the time as they are hand written letters from one person to another. Quite a lot of these tables have been found and they include an invitation to a birthday party, a reference for a job, a letter from one brother to another asking for a reply, and a letter requesting that some criminal charge be looked into by a higher authority. It is though that this last one was quite possible address to Hadrian himself. I had heard something about these tablets on some TV show at home. They have been preserved because the clay floors that had been laid one over the other have sealed out the air and bacteria and preserved the wood. More are still being found as excavations continue. Apparently the Romans left lots of things on the floor so that when the new floor was being laid it was laid over everything that was on the floor.
After we left here we made our way to Hexham then turned north and west again and wended our way over the hills and dales of Northumberland and into Scotland. Along the way we saw a great many pheasants and a few partridge. The shooting season is probably starting soon but at present there seems to be plenty of these game birds about and they seem to stroll casually across the road in front of us often. The male pheasants are very pretty with their black head, bright red and green neck and tan over the rest, the females are quite plain, a speckled, lighter tan. The partridge are not much different.
We came to the town of Lockerbie. The town that shot into the limelight when a Pan Am Boeing blew up over it and fell to earth killing all on board and 11 towns’ people as well in December 1988. There is a memorial garden for those killed but they don’t really want to make a tourist attraction out of it so we didn’t go there. We did however go and see the little Ukrainian Chapel that is here. It was built by Ukrainian POW’s that were brought here from Italy in 1947 and sent to work on local farms. It is only very small and is Greek Catholic. I don’t know if that is the same as Orthodox or not. Some of the ornamentation in the church is made out of wire coat hangers and gun shell casings, whatever the men could find to use. The man that greeted us when we arrived is the son of one of those Ukrainian POW’s. I think by 1947 they were really displaced persons rather than POW’s. They could not by then return to the Ukraine with safety.
I happened to read somewhere something about the Ruthwell Cross so we headed off towards the little village of Ruthwell to see the cross. In the village we found the small museum and the lady invited us in, it was free because of some open day weekend for many attractions in the area. We read all about Dr. Henry Duncan who found the cross and put it back together again. He was quite an accomplished man. The savings bank was really invented by him; he wanted to encourage the local hard working but poorly paid people to save their money so he started his bank and depositors need only a few pence to open an account and they got paid interest on what they deposited. They were encouraged to say a few shillings a year and if they did then they got bonuses. All the money was pooled together and deposited with big commercial banks to get good interest from them then the same amount of interest was spread among all the small savings account people. He started the local newspaper, found some dinosaur footprints not far away, and became a minister of religion.
The cross was carved from sandstone in the 8th century with religious carvings. In the 16th century it was broken up on the orders of the Scottish Church at that time. He found the pieces and reconstructed it, finishing it in 1820 and now it stands in the local church. It is 18ft high. More carvings were added after it was repaired. When we visited the church a bit later many people were there preparing it for the local harvest festival the next day.
There was just 6 of us in the little museum when we were there and 4 of us had lived in Rhodesia, the museum lady had lived in Beira in Mozambique, and the other lady had close ties with South Africa and visited there frequently. We thought that quite a co-incidence.
© Lynette Regan 1st October 2007
So now we are back in England. We stayed with Heather nearly a week this time. We did plan to go to Cornwall to see the Keoghs again but that plan had to be cancelled at the last minute due to the untimely death of a friend there.
David decided that he would like to visit the Scottish Islands so with this in mind we set out one sunny morning. This being late September the weather was certainly getting much cooler. I had been going for a morning walk in shorts but usually wearing a light pullover, so that is what I was wearing when we left.
We headed west through the smaller towns of Midhurst and Petersfield then on to Winchester and Salisbury. This is a pretty drive through the countryside that we have done a few times in the past. It’s mainly rolling hills with plenty of patches of woodland and fields of cultivation or grazing cattle or sheep. The trees in the woods are beginning to get their autumn tones now with some gold and russet coloured leaves appearing. The road wends it way around the hills and crosses streams on little humped backed bridges.
As we approached Salisbury the spire of the cathedral is quite the dominating feature. On this occasion we didn’t stop in the city but continued on our way now heading northwest towards Bath but as the afternoon traffic through the towns began to build up and with heavy rain threatening we took the motorway for quite a distance with only a couple of small delays through Birmingham. We managed to miss most of the rain too. Then we turned west and camped near a small village in which we had seen a lovely old church that sadly was locked so we couldn’t see inside. We were near the Welsh border.
After taking the motorway again to avoid traffic holdups through Liverpool or Manchester we turned east near Preston and went into the Forest of Bowland area with moors and fells that are quite lovely and you would never think that you really are only a few miles from a huge city like Manchester. With high steep mountains and narrow valleys the very narrow road twists around clinging to the sides of the mountains. There were a few patches of forest, mostly pine or spruce, but also some other deciduous trees beginning to wear their autumn colours in the valleys.
At one point we pulled into a layby and there in front of us was a group of people flying model gliders. They were interesting to watch as their operators were no amateurs. There were 5 gliders in the air together and some were doing loop the loops whilst others did barrel rolls, it was good entertainment while we waited for our jug to boil and make a cup of coffee.
Some of the fields were open grazing but others were covered in Heather, they were divided mainly by stone walls in various stages of repair. Whilst most were in quite reasonable order, some were broken and repaired quite hastily it seems, with barb wire, or whatever other material was at hand.
Then we made our way to the Lake District. This is one of my favourite areas as it is with a great many people, it is just so picturesque. It too has steep mountains and narrow valleys and twisting narrow roads, but far more tourists than in the forest of Bowland. In summer it must be hell to try and drive around here, one car has to find a place to pull off for another to pass, then there are also a lot of cyclists and people walking and there isn’t even enough room to pass them unless they stand off to one side. The busses and big delivery trucks keep the road side foliage well pruned by rubbing past it all the time.
There are a great many walks here but David wasn’t really feeling up to much in the way of walking so we wended our way round some narrow roads. The houses and fences are built of a dark stone, probably slate and even many of the new houses are built using the same material. Here, everything looks in fairly good repair; probably more effort is put into keeping everything looking good because it is a popular tourist spot.
One of the lakes we drove along the shore of is Coniston Water, David remarked that this is the lake where Donald Campbell was killed attempting to break the water speed record in the 1960’s, for those of us who are old enough to remember who he was. There were no boats out on the water as we passed but a couple of marinas on the other side looked to have plenty of resident boats. The road goes within a couple of metres of the waters edge in places with woodland on both sides of the road.
We called into Wray castle but it was closed so we couldn’t go inside and likewise the lovely stone church nearby. The castle is in very good repair as it is owned now by the National Trust. Beatrix Potter’s cottage is another place we tried to visit only to find it was closed too; we weren’t having much luck.
Ambleside is probably the prettiest place in the District and it was packed with tourists. There wasn’t anywhere reasonably close to the town to park the car. Its a shame really as it is such a pretty place and I would have loved to take some photos of it. The winding narrow streets with the grey houses and brightly coloured window and flower boxes: Most houses are two and three story and open right onto the street. Ambleside is on Lake Windermere.
Making our way towards Keswick we took the road up the Vale of St John and came to a quarry and mining museum at the end of the road. Here we found a great many old cranes all standing idle gathering rust. The quarry was an old stone quarry where local building stone was dug. The museum had a geology display mainly. Not far from here we came to Castle Rigg, an old stone circle dating from Neolithic/early bronze age, 4000 to 2500 BC. A mini sort of stone henge: It’s not a true circle being more oval in shape and flattened on the eastern end. It has a small square laid out within it at that end too. The stones vary in size from well over 2m high to small ones a couple of men might have managed. I don’t know how deep into the ground they go but they are packed in with small stones and dirt. It is believed that this circle was used for special ceremonies and also to tell the seasons but quite how they have reached this conclusion I cannot say.
We did stop in Keswick for a while and had a look about. It too was crowded with tourists but it isn’t quite as pretty as Ambleside, it is on Derwent Water. As we walked around we found that some of the shops were having end of season sales and I got a good pair of hiking boots to replace the ones I’ve been wearing that now leak and also a pair of new warm waterproof gloves; I may need them soon.
With rain threatening we drove on out of the Lake District and on up to Cockermouth. Quit suddenly you leave the mountains behind and are in very flat farming country. Can’t say that Cockermouth has much to offer but someone is bound to disagree. As we drove along the south coast of Solway Firth we passed several camps of Gypsies’. One lot had an old wooden gypsy caravan but using a modern pick-up truck to tow it.
When we came to the small Finglanrigg Wood nature reserve we stopped and walked through it. It’s secondary growth woodland, not been touched for about 150 years. It contains a peat marsh that has at one time had the peat cut from it but has now returned to being a marsh. Although it is only 97 hectares it’s a vital home to a number of birds and the native red squirrel. This squirrel is under threat as the grey imported one is taking over. The number of oak trees here is controlled leaving plenty of rowan trees, birch and scots pine, all vital for the red squirrel. Too many oak trees and the grey squirrel will move in and soon the red squirrel disappears. Unfortunately we didn’t see any squirrels but we did manage to see two red deer. Heard plenty of birds but of course Lyn didn’t get to see them either.
Thought we would have a look at Hadrian’s Wall or at least what is left of it, while we were in this area. The Roman Emperor Hadrian (76AD to 138AD) had this wall built during his reign. It was constructed during the 120’s and it’s believed that he visited the site in 122 in the early part of the construction. His aim was to consolidate the empire and to keep out the marauding Scots that the Romans called Barbarians. The Roman soldiers here were Auxiliary troop, which means that they were not Roman citizens. The Roman Legionnaires were the troops that were Roman citizens; the Auxiliary troops were give Roman citizenship at the end of their 25 year tour of duty if they survived.
The wall was two metres high with a castellated top, and for much of the way it was built along the top of dolerite cliffs just a couple of metres back from the edge. It was about 1m wide and well constructed of stone. On the steep slopes of gullies it was stepped up the slopes. The Romans were really good stone masons and excellent builders. This is no ‘great wall of China’ but it did stretch for some 80 miles. Every 1/3 of a Roman mile there was a watch tower and there were many forts along the way. Some remnants of many still remain.
We started with a visit to the Roman Army Museum. Here we watched a film about the wall and how it would have looked at the time of its construction. It explained the construction and the reasons for it. From an aerial view you can see many places where there has been a fort at some time, the shape being clearly visible even if it’s just grazing land now and covered in sheep. In another room a man gave us a talk and demonstration on all the things a Roman soldier wore. From his helmet and armour and shield, the cloak he wore under the armour, his weapons to the sandals and boots with studs that he wore on his feet. It was really very informative.
On display were many items that have been found in the area over time. A lot of iron tools some similar to those still in use today, plenty of leather items, mainly boots and sandals, but also bags and even a shield for a horses head. Many Roman coins, and lots of pottery and household items. A few small pieces of jewellery and some carved stone tablets.
At three different places we went and had a look at the wall and walked along it for a bit. One was quite a steep climb up a hill. You don’t actually walk on the wall but alongside it. What we though was really cheeky though is that at two of the three places we stopped at you have to pay to park the car, at least £1.
Probably the most important site we visited along the way is the site of the old Roman Fort and town of Vindolanda. Archaeological excavations are on going here, started some 30 or so years ago and expected to take another 200 years to finish the job, they only work on it from April till the end of August.
Several forts have been uncovered here. The earliest ones being built of wood: In this climate wooden structures would not have lasted very long, only about 8 years so then a new clay floor was laid and the next fort built on that, and so on: About 4 wooden forts were followed by a couple of stone forts. The foundations we could see were of the last of the stone forts and many of the houses and shops of the civilian town that had sprung up around the fort.
Up to 4000 people are believed to have lived here at one time, during the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD; and the whole place became abandoned soon after the fall of the Roman Empire in the 4th or 5th century AD, I’m not sure just when exactly. The soldiers here often took wives from the local inhabitants and those wives and families lived in the village next to the fort. Merchants and tradespeople would move here too because the soldiers were paid well and had money to spend and the families had to obtain their daily needs somehow. So a whole economy grew around the forts. With the fall of the empire came a very hazardous life of raids and fighting so people left the area.
For around 1000 years virtually no one lived in the area, then when things became more stable in the early 17th century small crofters began moving back into the area. They were often tenant farmers for the big estates and were allowed to have a few animals of their own and a small amount of land on which to grow some fruit and vegetables. The tiny cottages they had with barely two rooms, one for the animals in winter and the other to live in, with a loft above where stuff was stored and where any children slept were much poorer quality than the Roman houses of 1000 years earlier. The Roman houses had running water outside and probably under floor heating, glass in the windows and ornaments from Italy, and they had good public bath houses. The only thing the crofters cottages had the Romans didn’t is a chimney for the fireplace.
All that we could see of the excavations are the foundations of the buildings and some of the drains the water flowed along, the Romans had brick and wooden pipes to carry their water. There are the remains of two bath houses and a commanders (centurion) house, the barracks and the east and northern gates and a large number of civilian houses. Even a small church from the latter part of the Empire after Christianity was adopted. Down by the stream is a reconstructed temple, merchants shop, and a house.
In the museum the main feature here are the wooden tablets that have been found at this site. They give a very direct insight into life at the time as they are hand written letters from one person to another. Quite a lot of these tables have been found and they include an invitation to a birthday party, a reference for a job, a letter from one brother to another asking for a reply, and a letter requesting that some criminal charge be looked into by a higher authority. It is though that this last one was quite possible address to Hadrian himself. I had heard something about these tablets on some TV show at home. They have been preserved because the clay floors that had been laid one over the other have sealed out the air and bacteria and preserved the wood. More are still being found as excavations continue. Apparently the Romans left lots of things on the floor so that when the new floor was being laid it was laid over everything that was on the floor.
After we left here we made our way to Hexham then turned north and west again and wended our way over the hills and dales of Northumberland and into Scotland. Along the way we saw a great many pheasants and a few partridge. The shooting season is probably starting soon but at present there seems to be plenty of these game birds about and they seem to stroll casually across the road in front of us often. The male pheasants are very pretty with their black head, bright red and green neck and tan over the rest, the females are quite plain, a speckled, lighter tan. The partridge are not much different.
We came to the town of Lockerbie. The town that shot into the limelight when a Pan Am Boeing blew up over it and fell to earth killing all on board and 11 towns’ people as well in December 1988. There is a memorial garden for those killed but they don’t really want to make a tourist attraction out of it so we didn’t go there. We did however go and see the little Ukrainian Chapel that is here. It was built by Ukrainian POW’s that were brought here from Italy in 1947 and sent to work on local farms. It is only very small and is Greek Catholic. I don’t know if that is the same as Orthodox or not. Some of the ornamentation in the church is made out of wire coat hangers and gun shell casings, whatever the men could find to use. The man that greeted us when we arrived is the son of one of those Ukrainian POW’s. I think by 1947 they were really displaced persons rather than POW’s. They could not by then return to the Ukraine with safety.
I happened to read somewhere something about the Ruthwell Cross so we headed off towards the little village of Ruthwell to see the cross. In the village we found the small museum and the lady invited us in, it was free because of some open day weekend for many attractions in the area. We read all about Dr. Henry Duncan who found the cross and put it back together again. He was quite an accomplished man. The savings bank was really invented by him; he wanted to encourage the local hard working but poorly paid people to save their money so he started his bank and depositors need only a few pence to open an account and they got paid interest on what they deposited. They were encouraged to say a few shillings a year and if they did then they got bonuses. All the money was pooled together and deposited with big commercial banks to get good interest from them then the same amount of interest was spread among all the small savings account people. He started the local newspaper, found some dinosaur footprints not far away, and became a minister of religion.
The cross was carved from sandstone in the 8th century with religious carvings. In the 16th century it was broken up on the orders of the Scottish Church at that time. He found the pieces and reconstructed it, finishing it in 1820 and now it stands in the local church. It is 18ft high. More carvings were added after it was repaired. When we visited the church a bit later many people were there preparing it for the local harvest festival the next day.
There was just 6 of us in the little museum when we were there and 4 of us had lived in Rhodesia, the museum lady had lived in Beira in Mozambique, and the other lady had close ties with South Africa and visited there frequently. We thought that quite a co-incidence.
© Lynette Regan 1st October 2007
Episode 16
Episode 16
By the following morning the rain had stopped and soon the weather was clearing nicely.
We visited the local distillery where we did a tour with a good guide who did a splendid job of explaining the processes involved in the production of a good whiskey. This distillery was started by the Stevenson brothers in 1794.
First you have to start with the barley which is needed to make the malt. Where it is grown and the type of barley it is will all have an impact on the flavour of the end product. The barley is let to sprout for a week or so then dried in peat heated kilns, then crushed, then put into vats and water added in 3 stages at different temperatures and allowed to filter through. The liquid is then put into the fermentation tanks where the yeast is added. We could look into these tanks and see them at various stages of fermentation. When it’s finished fermenting there it’s quite like beer. This liquid is then distilled in specially shaped ‘stills’. The shape of the still and the shape and angle of the pipes leading out of the still and through the coils all has an effect on the taste of the end product.
It is then stored in American white oak casks to mature for 14 years here. First though those casks have been used for bourbon, then they are brought here, cleaned and the interiors burnt then filled with the liquid that isn’t allowed to be called scotch until its been in the casks for 3 years. From the time its goes into the still until it ends up in the customers’ hands the excise men keep a very keen eye on it indeed.
This distillery and many others in Scotland are all owned by the same company now. This company also owns many other distilleries around the world including Bundaberg Rum. I don’t know its name.
Another sight to see in Oban is McCaigs Tower. This was the project of one local resident banker who decided to have a place built to resemble the Colosseum in Rome, and to have fountains and statues in the centre. The idea was not purely self indulgence but to provide employment for locals during the winter when many were unemployed. It was started in 1895/6 and work stopped in 1900 when the banker died. By that time the round building was completed but not the statues and fountains. In my opinion the lawns and trees in the centre are much better than statues and fountains would be. What we have now is a two story round building with open archways all the way round. The lower story arches are about 2m high whilst the upper ones are a bit higher. It has a diameter of around 60m and is built, like nearly everything else in the town in a dark grey stone. From a viewing platform one gets a great view of the town and the harbour.
Down in the town there are many tourists though the season is almost over and there are vacancies everywhere, goodness knows what it must be like in the summer. There is much activity on the harbour with plenty of small boats running about and ferries coming and going. Several sailing boats taking advantage of the light winds and cruising about: Swans, ducks and shags on the water, fulmars and gulls riding the air currents and the occasional seal comes to the surface to peruse the goings on.
From here we are heading to the Outer Hebrides, we booked on the ferry to Barra having got a combination fare that includes several ferries to different places but ending up back on the mainland. I won’t mention the fare, its mind boggling.
It was quite a pleasant day when we left Oban on the ferry; there were very few other passengers and vehicles. The cruise through the channels between the small Islands, Mull and Morvern was very pretty but when we reached the Hebridean Sea it got quite rough with the waves breaking over the bow. The castle on the little Islet in Castlebay harbour grabs your attention as the ferry almost runs into it whilst turning to reverse into the RO-RO facility.
Barra is only a small island, about 10k’s long and 3 or 4 k’s wide and can be circumnavigated by car on a narrow winding road with plenty of ‘passing places’. There are quite a few things to see if you make the effort. We started with a drive up to the north end of the Island. The road comes to a stop by a farm gate. Up towards this end there is the airport: It is unusual in the fact that the runway is a tidal beach so flights have to be timed for times when the tide is out far enough to provide a dry runway. At the time we passed the tide was still going out and the wind sock had not been put up so everyone knows that it’s safe to walk on the beach. This beach is one where cockles are collected as the tide goes out and we could see a few people out on the edge of the receding water digging for them. Above the high tide mark the beach is quite white with broken cockle shells.
Along this road too is the ruin of the old Catholic Church of St. Barr. In the church yard here was found an old grave slab that dates back to the Norse, it has a Celtic Cross on the one side and Norse runes on the other and is dedicated to someone’s daughter. The original is in a museum in Edinburg and the locals here would like it back, what we saw was only a replica. Not much of the church remains but the small north chapel was rebuilt to provide a sheltered site for the original and some other old slabs. Looking around the grave yard you can easily see that Macneil is the dominant name here.
High up on a hill side we saw a statue so climbed up to it, it is of the Virgin and child, and we continued on up to the top of this hill 383m, the highest on the Island and from there we had a great view over the entire Island and to others beyond. Driving around the road it had seemed like one continuous suburb but from up here we could see that the habitation clung to the road and the coast. On the way back down we found a stone shaped like a pulpit on the edge of a steep drop and beside it was a pool of water draining out of the peat of the hillside, it had some tannin in it but was good to drink. The slopes of the hill are covered in thick grass and spongy mosses with some small heather bushes, a few with flowers, and in places it is very boggy so that you can sink a couple of inches into black oozing mud, and there are outcrops of granite too. We saw one little buttercup flower, most unusual as this is a spring flower, just a few other little wild flowers too. Sheep and cows graze all over.
We made our way up another hill, not so high nor so far to see a standing stone. Now, where else in the world would you traipse up a hill through boggy grass and moss and clamber over rocks just to look at a bit of granite sticking upright out of the ground. The stupid things tourists do, we should have our bloody heads examined. There had been two stones but one lies broken on the ground. This one has possibly been standing like that for 6000 years.
A visit to that castle in the harbour too seemed like a good idea though there really isn’t much to see there. It’s called Kisimul Castle and was the home of the Chief of the Macneil Clan. It is still owned by the family and leased to Scottish Heritage on a 1000 year lease (that is definitely what the brochure says). To get there we went down to the little jetty and took a cover off the bright orange strip on the post, the ferry man can see this strip and came and collected us and took us over to the castle, all part of the cost of the visit. Most of the place had been rebuilt in fairly recent times: It was only ever a small castle with a three story tower, a prison cell in a damp cellar, and the kitchens on the opposite side of a small enclosed yard. Some battlement up top from where the place could be defended: As it is a couple of hundred metres off shore it would have been fairly easy to see the enemy coming. It was abandoned in the mid 18th century.
Barra has some lovely white sandy beaches too and a good surf, but I don’t think I will be venturing in this late in the season. I have no idea what the water temperature is, but it’s not warm! Kite surfing is said to be popular but we didn’t see anyone doing it.
Joined to Barra via a causeway is the even smaller island of Vatersay. Here, we came across a memorial to the crew and some wreckage of a Catalina flying boat that crashed here in May 1944. On the western beach of a narrow isthmus there is another memorial, this one to crew and passengers of the ship Annie Jane that came to grief off the coast here in 1853 with 350 people losing their lives, but a few did survive and they were taken care of by locals.
There is a lovely walk around the southern end of the Island and I walked around some of it, but didn’t find the standing stone or other ruins that were meant to be someplace. Still there is a limit to how many standing stones one can fully appreciate. Back on Barra we climbed up to look at and Iron Age wheel house. Again there isn’t much to see but the first couple of rows of stones on the outer walls that are perfectly round and inside that 7 evenly spaces small piles of rock, it does resemble a wheel. Looking down from this site we could see a distinct rectangle overgrown with grass on a small flat piece of land below us.
On yet another walk we saw some swans on a small lake that is supposed to be a good fishing spot for brown trout. Flying around overhead were a couple of groups of geese, both groups flew is a straggly V formation and after we left the lake they landed on it. Up the narrow valley we followed we came to the ruins of the Macneil houses. They left the castle in the mid 18th century and came to live here, I don’t know why but there is virtually nothing left of any buildings here so if this is an example of the workmanship here at the time then it’s not surprising that the castle fell into ruins. Iron and Bronze Age structures are in better condition. On a rocky promontory we came to an Iron Age fort, it certainly commanded a good view of the sea, but there isn’t much left of it. Overgrowing it are some lovely mosses, where the stems and roots were exposed they looked like miniature trees. Some are turning red with the cooler autumn weather.
To top off our visit to Barra we stopped and had a look at the rock that is supposed to resemble Queen Victoria in facile profile, who am I to argue? We did see a plane come in to land at the airport before we left the island. It landed on the driest stretch of sand but still sent a spray of water high into the air behind it. Don’t know what make, but it was fairly small, 15 to 20 passengers and wings above the cabin. It took off again 20 mins later after an extremely short run up. Not everyone takes any notice of the sign to stay off the beach when the wind sock is flying as the people out cockling near the waters edge didn’t take interrupt their business.
The sun was shining and it was fairly warm when we left Barra on the ferry, one of only 6 cars on that trip. We passes many small Islets on the 35min trip to Eriskay. On some small low islets we saw a colony of seals. They were just lazing about on the rocks as seals do.
We rounded a low rock wall and entered the tiny boat harbour on the south end of Eriskay, just a ferry landing really. This island is very small, only couple of k’s long and not wide. The only long road runs up the west coast to the main village at Baile. Like Barra though, there are houses all the way along. A large hill dominates the eastern side of the road.
At Baile we parked the car in a small picnic area near a rocky beach, then set out to do a walk that would cover quite a large section of the island. This walk took us along a lovely wide, white sand beach backed by green grassy sand dunes. Up in amongst the dunes there is a cairn with a small plaque commemorating the fact that Charles Edward Stuart (Bonny Prince Charley) first set foot in Scotland here on the 23rd July 1745. Our walk took us almost to the ferry terminal when we crossed the road and headed back on the other side past the edge of a small loch that is the islands water supply and skited round the lower slopes of the big hill but still got some commanding views over the area. I did consider climbing the hill but didn’t come across a gate through the fence. David had got his feet very wet from some boggy areas that we’d had to cross, my new boots have proved their worth and my feet stayed dry, but then I took my care when crossing the boggy areas. Near the car we stopped and patted several of the very friendly little Eriskay ponies. They are a bit bigger than a Shetland, similar in size to the Icelandic ponies. Ten years ago they were near extinction but a breeding program has boosted their numbers well.
Back near the car we called into the bar to see some photos of the Am Politician, a ship that was wrecked off the beach here in 1941. On board were 264,000 bottles of whisky: After rescuing the crew the locals managed to liberate some 240,000 bottles before the excise men arrived.
After the mandatory visit to the local church, just a nice little church sitting on the top of a hill overlooking the village, we headed off to the causeway that connect this island to South Uist, the next island to the north. Before crossing that causeway I took a photo of the sign ‘otters crossing’ but no otter obliged by doing so. The causeway was only opened in 2002.
South Uist is a much larger island. We drove around several miles looking for the supposedly large town, by the time we found it, the tourist office had closed and the supermarket was 5k’s away. Like the other islands there are houses everywhere like one big suburb. The wind got up very strong and it started raining.
On a gloriously sunny day we did some bird watching and saw quite a variety of different birds. There are some fairly tame lapwings that are fairly distinctive as their black head feathers stick well out at the back, you can get reasonably close to there birds too. Plenty of swans, they are mute swans here, still white in colour and occasionally some grey cygnets, 5 in one group. Often see sea eagles too, one landed on a rabbit warren but even when some bunnies were out it didn’t pounce on any just stood there surveying them. There seemed to be thousands of bunnies in that warren. Another bird we saw many of in a field of rye, was similar to the corncrake but we decided it couldn’t be that because they are supposedly very noisy and the ones we watched weren’t.
We walked along the beach in the sunshine and looked amongst the dunes and found the remains of an ancient wheel house, approx 200AD. Just a hole in the ground and lined around the outer edge with rocks: The roof would have been supported from a central pole: The beaches have a lot of rubbish washed up on them from boats. Fisherman seem to chuck everything overboard and we even found a fluoro tube and a light bulb as well as fishing nets, ropes, old buoys, and a vast array of plastic containers. All the above strewn in amongst the seaweed: On another beach we found the remains of a missile complete with bright orange parachute, probably from the missile range on the north end of the island. Came across some seals lounging on some seaweed covered rocks, about 6 of them:
Visited a small museum, most of the items were from the late 19th cent and up to the 1950’s but there were a few items unique to these islands. One was a sandstone carving from very early Christian times. It had been in the ruin of the church at Tobha Mor then had gone missing; a Canadian couple found it in their sons flat in London after he had died. They got in touch with the British Museum and were told that it came from here so they returned it. This happened in fairly recent times. Now it’s claimed their is a curse on it if its removed unlawfully as the Canadians son had died in his sleep aged 33.
There were two beds and some other furniture made from drift wood. The wood here comes mainly from the Caribbean, carried on the Gulf Stream so is well weathered by the time it arrives here. To go on the beds there are mattresses made from sea weed and from hay, and blankets hand spun and woven from the local sheep’s wool. An African wooden carving has been collected from the beach too. Special spades to cut the peat are on display along with one that was given to them by a local person but comes from Bangladesh where they also cut peat for use in cooking fires.
In the same village as the slab came from are some ‘black’ houses. These houses are not really black but the inside walls used to become black from the smoke of the peat fires. In the museum I had read that these ‘black’ houses had really been very unhealthy; cholera and typhoid and tuberculoses had been common diseases amongst the people who lived in them. They had dirt floors and thatch roofs and were very damp. One of only two in the village that remain in good repair is used as a hostel by the Gatlief trust. We went in to have a look as it was open. It too smelt quite damp despite the concrete floor; the thatch roof holds the moisture. A newer stone building next door is also part of the hostel and it would be the one to stay in, apart from everything else it also had an electric heater on that kept it a lot drier. As hostels go it was fairly basis and the fee was only £1 less than what we’d paid in Oban for a far superior hostel breakfast included. The other ‘black’ house is used as a private residence and is in very good repair.
© Lynette Regan 10th October 2007
By the following morning the rain had stopped and soon the weather was clearing nicely.
We visited the local distillery where we did a tour with a good guide who did a splendid job of explaining the processes involved in the production of a good whiskey. This distillery was started by the Stevenson brothers in 1794.
First you have to start with the barley which is needed to make the malt. Where it is grown and the type of barley it is will all have an impact on the flavour of the end product. The barley is let to sprout for a week or so then dried in peat heated kilns, then crushed, then put into vats and water added in 3 stages at different temperatures and allowed to filter through. The liquid is then put into the fermentation tanks where the yeast is added. We could look into these tanks and see them at various stages of fermentation. When it’s finished fermenting there it’s quite like beer. This liquid is then distilled in specially shaped ‘stills’. The shape of the still and the shape and angle of the pipes leading out of the still and through the coils all has an effect on the taste of the end product.
It is then stored in American white oak casks to mature for 14 years here. First though those casks have been used for bourbon, then they are brought here, cleaned and the interiors burnt then filled with the liquid that isn’t allowed to be called scotch until its been in the casks for 3 years. From the time its goes into the still until it ends up in the customers’ hands the excise men keep a very keen eye on it indeed.
This distillery and many others in Scotland are all owned by the same company now. This company also owns many other distilleries around the world including Bundaberg Rum. I don’t know its name.
Another sight to see in Oban is McCaigs Tower. This was the project of one local resident banker who decided to have a place built to resemble the Colosseum in Rome, and to have fountains and statues in the centre. The idea was not purely self indulgence but to provide employment for locals during the winter when many were unemployed. It was started in 1895/6 and work stopped in 1900 when the banker died. By that time the round building was completed but not the statues and fountains. In my opinion the lawns and trees in the centre are much better than statues and fountains would be. What we have now is a two story round building with open archways all the way round. The lower story arches are about 2m high whilst the upper ones are a bit higher. It has a diameter of around 60m and is built, like nearly everything else in the town in a dark grey stone. From a viewing platform one gets a great view of the town and the harbour.
Down in the town there are many tourists though the season is almost over and there are vacancies everywhere, goodness knows what it must be like in the summer. There is much activity on the harbour with plenty of small boats running about and ferries coming and going. Several sailing boats taking advantage of the light winds and cruising about: Swans, ducks and shags on the water, fulmars and gulls riding the air currents and the occasional seal comes to the surface to peruse the goings on.
From here we are heading to the Outer Hebrides, we booked on the ferry to Barra having got a combination fare that includes several ferries to different places but ending up back on the mainland. I won’t mention the fare, its mind boggling.
It was quite a pleasant day when we left Oban on the ferry; there were very few other passengers and vehicles. The cruise through the channels between the small Islands, Mull and Morvern was very pretty but when we reached the Hebridean Sea it got quite rough with the waves breaking over the bow. The castle on the little Islet in Castlebay harbour grabs your attention as the ferry almost runs into it whilst turning to reverse into the RO-RO facility.
Barra is only a small island, about 10k’s long and 3 or 4 k’s wide and can be circumnavigated by car on a narrow winding road with plenty of ‘passing places’. There are quite a few things to see if you make the effort. We started with a drive up to the north end of the Island. The road comes to a stop by a farm gate. Up towards this end there is the airport: It is unusual in the fact that the runway is a tidal beach so flights have to be timed for times when the tide is out far enough to provide a dry runway. At the time we passed the tide was still going out and the wind sock had not been put up so everyone knows that it’s safe to walk on the beach. This beach is one where cockles are collected as the tide goes out and we could see a few people out on the edge of the receding water digging for them. Above the high tide mark the beach is quite white with broken cockle shells.
Along this road too is the ruin of the old Catholic Church of St. Barr. In the church yard here was found an old grave slab that dates back to the Norse, it has a Celtic Cross on the one side and Norse runes on the other and is dedicated to someone’s daughter. The original is in a museum in Edinburg and the locals here would like it back, what we saw was only a replica. Not much of the church remains but the small north chapel was rebuilt to provide a sheltered site for the original and some other old slabs. Looking around the grave yard you can easily see that Macneil is the dominant name here.
High up on a hill side we saw a statue so climbed up to it, it is of the Virgin and child, and we continued on up to the top of this hill 383m, the highest on the Island and from there we had a great view over the entire Island and to others beyond. Driving around the road it had seemed like one continuous suburb but from up here we could see that the habitation clung to the road and the coast. On the way back down we found a stone shaped like a pulpit on the edge of a steep drop and beside it was a pool of water draining out of the peat of the hillside, it had some tannin in it but was good to drink. The slopes of the hill are covered in thick grass and spongy mosses with some small heather bushes, a few with flowers, and in places it is very boggy so that you can sink a couple of inches into black oozing mud, and there are outcrops of granite too. We saw one little buttercup flower, most unusual as this is a spring flower, just a few other little wild flowers too. Sheep and cows graze all over.
We made our way up another hill, not so high nor so far to see a standing stone. Now, where else in the world would you traipse up a hill through boggy grass and moss and clamber over rocks just to look at a bit of granite sticking upright out of the ground. The stupid things tourists do, we should have our bloody heads examined. There had been two stones but one lies broken on the ground. This one has possibly been standing like that for 6000 years.
A visit to that castle in the harbour too seemed like a good idea though there really isn’t much to see there. It’s called Kisimul Castle and was the home of the Chief of the Macneil Clan. It is still owned by the family and leased to Scottish Heritage on a 1000 year lease (that is definitely what the brochure says). To get there we went down to the little jetty and took a cover off the bright orange strip on the post, the ferry man can see this strip and came and collected us and took us over to the castle, all part of the cost of the visit. Most of the place had been rebuilt in fairly recent times: It was only ever a small castle with a three story tower, a prison cell in a damp cellar, and the kitchens on the opposite side of a small enclosed yard. Some battlement up top from where the place could be defended: As it is a couple of hundred metres off shore it would have been fairly easy to see the enemy coming. It was abandoned in the mid 18th century.
Barra has some lovely white sandy beaches too and a good surf, but I don’t think I will be venturing in this late in the season. I have no idea what the water temperature is, but it’s not warm! Kite surfing is said to be popular but we didn’t see anyone doing it.
Joined to Barra via a causeway is the even smaller island of Vatersay. Here, we came across a memorial to the crew and some wreckage of a Catalina flying boat that crashed here in May 1944. On the western beach of a narrow isthmus there is another memorial, this one to crew and passengers of the ship Annie Jane that came to grief off the coast here in 1853 with 350 people losing their lives, but a few did survive and they were taken care of by locals.
There is a lovely walk around the southern end of the Island and I walked around some of it, but didn’t find the standing stone or other ruins that were meant to be someplace. Still there is a limit to how many standing stones one can fully appreciate. Back on Barra we climbed up to look at and Iron Age wheel house. Again there isn’t much to see but the first couple of rows of stones on the outer walls that are perfectly round and inside that 7 evenly spaces small piles of rock, it does resemble a wheel. Looking down from this site we could see a distinct rectangle overgrown with grass on a small flat piece of land below us.
On yet another walk we saw some swans on a small lake that is supposed to be a good fishing spot for brown trout. Flying around overhead were a couple of groups of geese, both groups flew is a straggly V formation and after we left the lake they landed on it. Up the narrow valley we followed we came to the ruins of the Macneil houses. They left the castle in the mid 18th century and came to live here, I don’t know why but there is virtually nothing left of any buildings here so if this is an example of the workmanship here at the time then it’s not surprising that the castle fell into ruins. Iron and Bronze Age structures are in better condition. On a rocky promontory we came to an Iron Age fort, it certainly commanded a good view of the sea, but there isn’t much left of it. Overgrowing it are some lovely mosses, where the stems and roots were exposed they looked like miniature trees. Some are turning red with the cooler autumn weather.
To top off our visit to Barra we stopped and had a look at the rock that is supposed to resemble Queen Victoria in facile profile, who am I to argue? We did see a plane come in to land at the airport before we left the island. It landed on the driest stretch of sand but still sent a spray of water high into the air behind it. Don’t know what make, but it was fairly small, 15 to 20 passengers and wings above the cabin. It took off again 20 mins later after an extremely short run up. Not everyone takes any notice of the sign to stay off the beach when the wind sock is flying as the people out cockling near the waters edge didn’t take interrupt their business.
The sun was shining and it was fairly warm when we left Barra on the ferry, one of only 6 cars on that trip. We passes many small Islets on the 35min trip to Eriskay. On some small low islets we saw a colony of seals. They were just lazing about on the rocks as seals do.
We rounded a low rock wall and entered the tiny boat harbour on the south end of Eriskay, just a ferry landing really. This island is very small, only couple of k’s long and not wide. The only long road runs up the west coast to the main village at Baile. Like Barra though, there are houses all the way along. A large hill dominates the eastern side of the road.
At Baile we parked the car in a small picnic area near a rocky beach, then set out to do a walk that would cover quite a large section of the island. This walk took us along a lovely wide, white sand beach backed by green grassy sand dunes. Up in amongst the dunes there is a cairn with a small plaque commemorating the fact that Charles Edward Stuart (Bonny Prince Charley) first set foot in Scotland here on the 23rd July 1745. Our walk took us almost to the ferry terminal when we crossed the road and headed back on the other side past the edge of a small loch that is the islands water supply and skited round the lower slopes of the big hill but still got some commanding views over the area. I did consider climbing the hill but didn’t come across a gate through the fence. David had got his feet very wet from some boggy areas that we’d had to cross, my new boots have proved their worth and my feet stayed dry, but then I took my care when crossing the boggy areas. Near the car we stopped and patted several of the very friendly little Eriskay ponies. They are a bit bigger than a Shetland, similar in size to the Icelandic ponies. Ten years ago they were near extinction but a breeding program has boosted their numbers well.
Back near the car we called into the bar to see some photos of the Am Politician, a ship that was wrecked off the beach here in 1941. On board were 264,000 bottles of whisky: After rescuing the crew the locals managed to liberate some 240,000 bottles before the excise men arrived.
After the mandatory visit to the local church, just a nice little church sitting on the top of a hill overlooking the village, we headed off to the causeway that connect this island to South Uist, the next island to the north. Before crossing that causeway I took a photo of the sign ‘otters crossing’ but no otter obliged by doing so. The causeway was only opened in 2002.
South Uist is a much larger island. We drove around several miles looking for the supposedly large town, by the time we found it, the tourist office had closed and the supermarket was 5k’s away. Like the other islands there are houses everywhere like one big suburb. The wind got up very strong and it started raining.
On a gloriously sunny day we did some bird watching and saw quite a variety of different birds. There are some fairly tame lapwings that are fairly distinctive as their black head feathers stick well out at the back, you can get reasonably close to there birds too. Plenty of swans, they are mute swans here, still white in colour and occasionally some grey cygnets, 5 in one group. Often see sea eagles too, one landed on a rabbit warren but even when some bunnies were out it didn’t pounce on any just stood there surveying them. There seemed to be thousands of bunnies in that warren. Another bird we saw many of in a field of rye, was similar to the corncrake but we decided it couldn’t be that because they are supposedly very noisy and the ones we watched weren’t.
We walked along the beach in the sunshine and looked amongst the dunes and found the remains of an ancient wheel house, approx 200AD. Just a hole in the ground and lined around the outer edge with rocks: The roof would have been supported from a central pole: The beaches have a lot of rubbish washed up on them from boats. Fisherman seem to chuck everything overboard and we even found a fluoro tube and a light bulb as well as fishing nets, ropes, old buoys, and a vast array of plastic containers. All the above strewn in amongst the seaweed: On another beach we found the remains of a missile complete with bright orange parachute, probably from the missile range on the north end of the island. Came across some seals lounging on some seaweed covered rocks, about 6 of them:
Visited a small museum, most of the items were from the late 19th cent and up to the 1950’s but there were a few items unique to these islands. One was a sandstone carving from very early Christian times. It had been in the ruin of the church at Tobha Mor then had gone missing; a Canadian couple found it in their sons flat in London after he had died. They got in touch with the British Museum and were told that it came from here so they returned it. This happened in fairly recent times. Now it’s claimed their is a curse on it if its removed unlawfully as the Canadians son had died in his sleep aged 33.
There were two beds and some other furniture made from drift wood. The wood here comes mainly from the Caribbean, carried on the Gulf Stream so is well weathered by the time it arrives here. To go on the beds there are mattresses made from sea weed and from hay, and blankets hand spun and woven from the local sheep’s wool. An African wooden carving has been collected from the beach too. Special spades to cut the peat are on display along with one that was given to them by a local person but comes from Bangladesh where they also cut peat for use in cooking fires.
In the same village as the slab came from are some ‘black’ houses. These houses are not really black but the inside walls used to become black from the smoke of the peat fires. In the museum I had read that these ‘black’ houses had really been very unhealthy; cholera and typhoid and tuberculoses had been common diseases amongst the people who lived in them. They had dirt floors and thatch roofs and were very damp. One of only two in the village that remain in good repair is used as a hostel by the Gatlief trust. We went in to have a look as it was open. It too smelt quite damp despite the concrete floor; the thatch roof holds the moisture. A newer stone building next door is also part of the hostel and it would be the one to stay in, apart from everything else it also had an electric heater on that kept it a lot drier. As hostels go it was fairly basis and the fee was only £1 less than what we’d paid in Oban for a far superior hostel breakfast included. The other ‘black’ house is used as a private residence and is in very good repair.
© Lynette Regan 10th October 2007
Episode 15
The next place we visited we so did because we’d been told about it in Ruthwell. It was a display in the small church in Eastriggs about the cordite factory that was built here in 1915. It covered an area of 9 miles by 2 miles on the north bank of Solway Firth. Not one building but many mainly so that any fires or explosions could be more easily contained that way. There was up to 30,000 people employed directly and indirectly here at the peak of its production.
It all came about because Britain was desperately short of ammunition in WW1, and some munitions expert was brought in from South Africa to find a solution to the problem. This site was chosen because of the proximity to rail lines, roads and shipping, but well away from the range of German WW1 aircraft.
Experts from all over the Commonwealth came and workers from all over Britain moved here. They were encouraged to come by the high wages paid. £5 a week was the going rate and it was mostly women who were available and came: Other businesses complained about their workers leaving to come here for better wages.
What they made here was cordite and to make this they mixed nitro glycerine and nitro gun cotton together by hand. We were told that it ends up looking like long thin spaghetti. Nothing metal could be worn at all, no rings or bracelets, no bobby pins, nothing metal could be used in case it caused a spark and an explosion. The mixing tubs were ceramic and long wooden shovels were used for mixing. Many of the women were trained in fire fighting and did some very brave things when fires broke out. Not many were killed.
In 1916 Arthur Conan Doyle visited the place (the creator of Sherlock Holmes) and he called this stuff ‘devils porridge’. In all, this factory produced more than all the other factories over Britain did put together. Today virtually nothing remains and what does is enclosed within a military no go zone.
The factory had 125 miles of its own internal railway line with 34 engines, its own power plant to run it and the town. 14000 meals and 13000 loaves of bread were produced daily in the factory’s’ kitchen. Three shifts of 8 hours each kept the place running continuously.
We were in the Dumfries area and Scottish 18th century poet Robert (Robbie) Burns lived here at one time. There is a museum dedicated to him and a house where he lived. He was born near Ayr in what is now a suburb of the town and his house there too is a museum, but we didn’t visit any of them.
There was a special open day weekend and many sites were free to enter but when we made our way round we found that for one reason or another some of them weren’t open at all. Of the castles one had a private wedding, one had something else, the iron age roundhouse had a birthday party, and so on. Yet another castle we arrived at just as it was closing for the day so we didn’t get to see that one either. Still, mostly they are just ruins and you can see almost as much for the outside as from inside. There are a large number of such castles around this part of Scotland, they are only small as castles go and nearly all date from much the same time, the 13th century.
One place we did get to visit is the Shambellie National Museum of Costume. To start with Shambellie is a lovely house built in the 19th century. Built of a soft fawn coloured stone it is 3 stories high and has lovely round towers with pointed roofs. The gardens are beautiful and must be spectacular in the spring when the huge banks of rhododendrons are in flower. There is a view across the firth to the hills of Cumbria (in the Lake District).
On entering we were given a booklet for a self guided tour of the place. In each room there are models and the booklet explained the dress and the period it was from then also gave details on the furniture, the mirrors and the paintings on the walls. One room was a dining room set in the early 1900’s before WW1, then there was a drawing room set in WW2, a less format sitting room from the early 1950’s, even a 19th century bathroom with a lady wearing what would have been appropriate at the time. Another room had a display of 19th century Victorian clothes. A bedroom and nursery were of early 20th century. It was all very well presented.
Another place we visited was the birthplace of John Paul Jones who became the captain of an American war ship during the war of Independence and brought the war to Britain where he engaged some British ships in battle and won. Apparently the Americans treat him as a national hero.
The oldest surviving complete lighthouse in Scotland at Southerness was a nice place to visit on a sunny afternoon and again we got a good view across the firth to the Cumbrian hills. The lighthouse is no longer working and hasn’t done so for a long time. First built in the 18th century it was increased in height twice over the years and closed too, for a while. During the time it was closed many ships ran aground in its vicinity. Now there is not enough large shipping to warrant it. In places there are some low rocks and some of the beaches are pebbly, quite a lot of seaweed washed up on them too, but we didn’t see any sand or anywhere that you could conceivably go swimming even if the water was ever warm enough. On the southern coast of Solway Firth there was some sandy beaches but I can’t honestly say they looked inviting.
We travelled on up through Girvan and up to Ayr. On this part of the trip it was a really beautiful sunny warm day, an almost cloudless blue sky: The sea and the coast looked really nice along this part of the Firth of Clyde. Off the coast from Girvan we could see Ailsa Craig, a large rocky island that is privately owned and in summer is home to thousands of nesting birds. Some way north of Girvan we did come to a reasonable sandy beach, it was privately owed by a big estate with another castle. Several dogs and their owners were enjoying the beach watched over by a great many sea gulls.
At Troon we found a car park with a nice view across the bay to Ayr and sat here in the warm sunshine and ate our lunch. As we did so we watched a number of planes come in to land at the nearby Prestwick international airport. They were mainly Ryan Air planes.
Along the way we noticed several large marinas that had a huge quantity of sailing vessels in them. At Largs we stopped and had a look around one of these marinas. This one alone had just about enough boats for every family in Glasgow or so it seemed. It was like a small town with a whole shopping precinct as well as several ships chandleries and major repair shops.
Near Gourock we took a ferry to Dunoon in Argyll. This area is thickly covered with pine forest that is not all that old as the trees are not very tall. It is all planted forest, mainly spruce I think. Now the forestry people are also planting a lot more of the native broad leaf, deciduous trees like the oak, alder and birch trees because it is better for all the birds and native animals. We saw some nice blackberries in one place when we stopped for a cup of tea so we ate plenty of them. All the roads here are narrow too, mostly one lane and windy so it is slow travelling but fortunately at this time of year there isn’t a lot of traffic and no one gets upset by having to stop or reverse up to let another past. Driving along we spotted an old ruined church. On closer inspection we found that it was the burial chapel of the chiefs of the Clan Lachlan. The small chapel was minus its roof, but the walls were solid. On the floor were many grave slabs: Outside in the graveyard the oldest headstone we could read was from the 18th century but there could have been older ones there. Most were far more recent, late 20th century. The 21st century ones were in a separate field.
A castle we did visit is the famous Inveraray Castle on Loch Fyne. It is another beautiful castle, and the ancestral home of the Duke of Argyll. The current duke is the 13th duke who is a man of nearly 40, he married Eleanor Cadbury in 2002 (not sure if she is of the chocolate Cadbury’s). Construction on this castle only began in 1746 and it took 40 years to build. Nothing remains of its predecessor.
For each room there is a short description on a printed sheet that describes its furnishing, paintings and other items. To start we entered the dining room, this had a long dining table on which stood a very large silver bowl and 2 galleons each on 4 wheels, that looked gold to me but the sheet described them as silver. On the walls were paintings of family member and the ceiling was moulded and beautifully painted. Above each of the four doors was a round moulding representing each of the 4 seasons. They had been made in France but the gilding on them had been done in Scotland. The chairs were French too.
Another room had several large tapestries depicting country scenes that had been especially made for this room, again the ceiling was moulded. In a small round room off to the side of this room and the bottom part of a tower was a china display room with some beautiful dinner sets and other china. A full dinner set of Meissen china occupied one long cabinet, top to bottom; there was a Royal Gloucester dinner set and some Chinese plates as well as much else. The moulded ceiling in this room was made of paper-mache.
Probably the thing this castle is most famous for is the Armoury display. It occupies the central room from floor to the ceiling 3 stories high and painted with the crest. On display are 1300 pieces of weaponry. On the walls of this central room guns and spears and all sorts of weapons are presented in circles and arcs all very artistically displayed. In show cases about the room there are daggers and powder horns, whilst in the hall there was a set of armour and some cannon balls.
Another room had many family portraits and one of them was a Gainsborough, while a cabinet contained enough exquisite family silver to keep any common burglar happy. Elsewhere I saw a display table full of ancient bronze and Neolithic age items that one of the dukes had collected over a period of time; mostly they had been found on Tiree. There were nails and pins, some flnt knives, and a few other bronze artefacts.
Upstairs were more rooms containing more paintings and family items, especially a big family tree going as far back as 1100. Back in the 19th Century one of the Dukes married Louise, one of the daughters of Queen Victoria. There was a painting of her on one of the walls.
A bedroom with a big four poster bed had a canopy that was covered in the Campbell tartan. The Argylls are of the Campbell Clan. Another circular room off this bedroom, part of another tower, had more recent photos of the family members. Downstairs we could see the kitchen much as it was around the early 1900’s. It is not used now, a more modern one had been installed somewhere else in the castle. This one had many really good copper pots and pans hanging up around the walls. There are two baking ovens, one for bread and pastries, the other for meats and suchlike. Two hot tops for boiling water and cooking food on, and a bit rotisserie for roasting a pig or perhaps several fowl on. In the centre of the room were the big wooden work benches. The washing up wouldn’t have been done here but in the scullery, a separate room off the kitchen. It was a good castle to visit with plenty to see.
The village of Invarare is not very large and relies mainly of the tourists that come to visit the castle. It’s quite a pretty little place standing on the edge of the lock as it does. The buildings are all built of the same dark stone as the castle.
As we continued on down the lock we came to a view point where we got a wonderful view over several locks and channels between the islands. It was a beautiful sunny day and there were many sailing boats and other pleasure craft out and about on the water.
Some way further on we came to some ancient stone carvings. These are somewhere between 3500 and 6000 years old. To reach them we had a lovely walk along a path up a hill side through the bracken and heather, a small wood of birch trees and alder, then an area of spruce trees and some blackberry bushes. The carvings were on some large rock faces and clustered together in groups. They consisted of ‘cup and ring’ design. The cup is a small hollow that has been chiselled out with a flint knife, about 1.5cm deep and 4 cm diameter and the rings are shallow circular channels. Often the rings are concentric around the cup, but not always. On some a cup will be incorporated into the ring or placed randomly between rings. There are other channels too, straight ones, seemingly at random to everything else. Archaeologists are trying to see some meaning is all this and no doubt they will eventually come up with some theory about what all these things mean but they haven’t yet done so.
Not far from here in the Kilmartin Glen we saw some ancient stone cairns and standing stones. These all date from much the same period. The stone cairns have been burial places. In one it is possible to see a stone lined burial chamber, one of several that have been found in the cairn. These were excavated long ago and it was found that some bodies had been cremated while others hadn’t. The remains of many bodies were found in each tomb.
Six standing stones in a field of grazing sheep look to me like someone has started a project that they couldn’t be bothered finishing. There are 4 stones in a line, they two 30m away. The tallest is 4m high and would have taken a great deal of effort to get it there and upright. They are all packed with small stones to keep them upright so they must have quite a length below ground too. A small ‘henge’ was near here, that’s a stone circle but the stones on this were much smaller, and there was a ditch inside the stones and a mount outside of them and another tomb in the middle with the big stone grave slab still there. The slab had been placed over the grave. Apparently all these things are on some ancient trade route. There were some more cairns around but these stones were all beginning to look like each other so we didn’t bother with looking at more.
In the village of Kilmartin we called at the church to see some more grave slabs, but these were much more recent than those in the sheep fields. These were from the 13th century onward and were carved by local craftsmen. Some of them had a warrior carved on them, others intricate patterns and Celtic crosses. These slabs were placed flat on the ground over the grave originally, though now some of the better ones are standing upright in a special undercover enclosure to protect them from weathering. When we looked around the graveyard we noticed that there were many in one area that had a skull and crossbones carved on them but we read no mention of them anywhere and we wondered why they would have had this pattern when it is usually associated with pirates.
On the northwestern end of Lock Awe we came across an interesting church. It was built by one Walter Douglas Campbell and is dedicated to St. Conan who is believed to have lived in the area at one time. It’s not an old church only finished in 1930, but it is absolutely unique. This Walter Campbell moved to the area with his mother and sister around 1906 and built a small chapel for his mother as she didn’t want to travel a long distance to go to church. Not happy with the chapel he then designed this church himself, putting in everything he thought might look good so that we now have quite a lovely building that is a mishmash of various designs. It is very large and the cloister has a patterned lead roof, there is a square Saxon tower, some gargoyles chasing a hare, and a Celtic cross are high up on another part of the roof, there are more pointy bits here and there.
Inside the oak wood beams in the nave came from a wrecked sailing ship and there is a many pained, clear glass window in one of the side chapels that was got from a demolition yard but had been in a church in England somewhere. This is a very large church, and even now the village is quite tiny.
The site was not levelled to begin with so one end of the building is very high when the land drops down towards the lake. The rock used in construction wasn’t quarried but rolled down the hill and cut to size on site. It sits on the edge of a steep bank overlooking the lock with a splendid view over the lock to the hills beyond. This Walter Campbell wasn’t an architect and was told at one point that his design wouldn’t stand up, so he made a scale model and ran a steam engine over it and it survived intact so he built his church and its standing well enough too. Not himself though, he died shortly before it was finished, after both his mother and sister.
Nor far from the church we came to the hydroelectric power station and went on a tour there. The generator and all 4 turbines are underground in huge tunnels that have been carved out of the black granite. It was constructed from 1959 to 1965, and opened by the Queen in that year. The water to run the turbines in stored in a ‘bowl’ in the mountains that was carved out by glaciers in the past. It holds 10,000,000 cm of water and can run the turbines for 16 hours. This power station is only used to supply power in peak demand times so it doesn’t have to generate power on a continuous basis. Those turbines can be producing electricity within less than one minute when it’s required. During off peak times the water is pumped back from the lock to that ‘bowl’ reservoir in the mountains using electricity that is bought back at a cheaper rate.
And so we drove into Oban on a very wet afternoon with the cloud down very low and the sea a forbidding looking grey.
© Lynette Regan 4th October 2007
The next place we visited we so did because we’d been told about it in Ruthwell. It was a display in the small church in Eastriggs about the cordite factory that was built here in 1915. It covered an area of 9 miles by 2 miles on the north bank of Solway Firth. Not one building but many mainly so that any fires or explosions could be more easily contained that way. There was up to 30,000 people employed directly and indirectly here at the peak of its production.
It all came about because Britain was desperately short of ammunition in WW1, and some munitions expert was brought in from South Africa to find a solution to the problem. This site was chosen because of the proximity to rail lines, roads and shipping, but well away from the range of German WW1 aircraft.
Experts from all over the Commonwealth came and workers from all over Britain moved here. They were encouraged to come by the high wages paid. £5 a week was the going rate and it was mostly women who were available and came: Other businesses complained about their workers leaving to come here for better wages.
What they made here was cordite and to make this they mixed nitro glycerine and nitro gun cotton together by hand. We were told that it ends up looking like long thin spaghetti. Nothing metal could be worn at all, no rings or bracelets, no bobby pins, nothing metal could be used in case it caused a spark and an explosion. The mixing tubs were ceramic and long wooden shovels were used for mixing. Many of the women were trained in fire fighting and did some very brave things when fires broke out. Not many were killed.
In 1916 Arthur Conan Doyle visited the place (the creator of Sherlock Holmes) and he called this stuff ‘devils porridge’. In all, this factory produced more than all the other factories over Britain did put together. Today virtually nothing remains and what does is enclosed within a military no go zone.
The factory had 125 miles of its own internal railway line with 34 engines, its own power plant to run it and the town. 14000 meals and 13000 loaves of bread were produced daily in the factory’s’ kitchen. Three shifts of 8 hours each kept the place running continuously.
We were in the Dumfries area and Scottish 18th century poet Robert (Robbie) Burns lived here at one time. There is a museum dedicated to him and a house where he lived. He was born near Ayr in what is now a suburb of the town and his house there too is a museum, but we didn’t visit any of them.
There was a special open day weekend and many sites were free to enter but when we made our way round we found that for one reason or another some of them weren’t open at all. Of the castles one had a private wedding, one had something else, the iron age roundhouse had a birthday party, and so on. Yet another castle we arrived at just as it was closing for the day so we didn’t get to see that one either. Still, mostly they are just ruins and you can see almost as much for the outside as from inside. There are a large number of such castles around this part of Scotland, they are only small as castles go and nearly all date from much the same time, the 13th century.
One place we did get to visit is the Shambellie National Museum of Costume. To start with Shambellie is a lovely house built in the 19th century. Built of a soft fawn coloured stone it is 3 stories high and has lovely round towers with pointed roofs. The gardens are beautiful and must be spectacular in the spring when the huge banks of rhododendrons are in flower. There is a view across the firth to the hills of Cumbria (in the Lake District).
On entering we were given a booklet for a self guided tour of the place. In each room there are models and the booklet explained the dress and the period it was from then also gave details on the furniture, the mirrors and the paintings on the walls. One room was a dining room set in the early 1900’s before WW1, then there was a drawing room set in WW2, a less format sitting room from the early 1950’s, even a 19th century bathroom with a lady wearing what would have been appropriate at the time. Another room had a display of 19th century Victorian clothes. A bedroom and nursery were of early 20th century. It was all very well presented.
Another place we visited was the birthplace of John Paul Jones who became the captain of an American war ship during the war of Independence and brought the war to Britain where he engaged some British ships in battle and won. Apparently the Americans treat him as a national hero.
The oldest surviving complete lighthouse in Scotland at Southerness was a nice place to visit on a sunny afternoon and again we got a good view across the firth to the Cumbrian hills. The lighthouse is no longer working and hasn’t done so for a long time. First built in the 18th century it was increased in height twice over the years and closed too, for a while. During the time it was closed many ships ran aground in its vicinity. Now there is not enough large shipping to warrant it. In places there are some low rocks and some of the beaches are pebbly, quite a lot of seaweed washed up on them too, but we didn’t see any sand or anywhere that you could conceivably go swimming even if the water was ever warm enough. On the southern coast of Solway Firth there was some sandy beaches but I can’t honestly say they looked inviting.
We travelled on up through Girvan and up to Ayr. On this part of the trip it was a really beautiful sunny warm day, an almost cloudless blue sky: The sea and the coast looked really nice along this part of the Firth of Clyde. Off the coast from Girvan we could see Ailsa Craig, a large rocky island that is privately owned and in summer is home to thousands of nesting birds. Some way north of Girvan we did come to a reasonable sandy beach, it was privately owed by a big estate with another castle. Several dogs and their owners were enjoying the beach watched over by a great many sea gulls.
At Troon we found a car park with a nice view across the bay to Ayr and sat here in the warm sunshine and ate our lunch. As we did so we watched a number of planes come in to land at the nearby Prestwick international airport. They were mainly Ryan Air planes.
Along the way we noticed several large marinas that had a huge quantity of sailing vessels in them. At Largs we stopped and had a look around one of these marinas. This one alone had just about enough boats for every family in Glasgow or so it seemed. It was like a small town with a whole shopping precinct as well as several ships chandleries and major repair shops.
Near Gourock we took a ferry to Dunoon in Argyll. This area is thickly covered with pine forest that is not all that old as the trees are not very tall. It is all planted forest, mainly spruce I think. Now the forestry people are also planting a lot more of the native broad leaf, deciduous trees like the oak, alder and birch trees because it is better for all the birds and native animals. We saw some nice blackberries in one place when we stopped for a cup of tea so we ate plenty of them. All the roads here are narrow too, mostly one lane and windy so it is slow travelling but fortunately at this time of year there isn’t a lot of traffic and no one gets upset by having to stop or reverse up to let another past. Driving along we spotted an old ruined church. On closer inspection we found that it was the burial chapel of the chiefs of the Clan Lachlan. The small chapel was minus its roof, but the walls were solid. On the floor were many grave slabs: Outside in the graveyard the oldest headstone we could read was from the 18th century but there could have been older ones there. Most were far more recent, late 20th century. The 21st century ones were in a separate field.
A castle we did visit is the famous Inveraray Castle on Loch Fyne. It is another beautiful castle, and the ancestral home of the Duke of Argyll. The current duke is the 13th duke who is a man of nearly 40, he married Eleanor Cadbury in 2002 (not sure if she is of the chocolate Cadbury’s). Construction on this castle only began in 1746 and it took 40 years to build. Nothing remains of its predecessor.
For each room there is a short description on a printed sheet that describes its furnishing, paintings and other items. To start we entered the dining room, this had a long dining table on which stood a very large silver bowl and 2 galleons each on 4 wheels, that looked gold to me but the sheet described them as silver. On the walls were paintings of family member and the ceiling was moulded and beautifully painted. Above each of the four doors was a round moulding representing each of the 4 seasons. They had been made in France but the gilding on them had been done in Scotland. The chairs were French too.
Another room had several large tapestries depicting country scenes that had been especially made for this room, again the ceiling was moulded. In a small round room off to the side of this room and the bottom part of a tower was a china display room with some beautiful dinner sets and other china. A full dinner set of Meissen china occupied one long cabinet, top to bottom; there was a Royal Gloucester dinner set and some Chinese plates as well as much else. The moulded ceiling in this room was made of paper-mache.
Probably the thing this castle is most famous for is the Armoury display. It occupies the central room from floor to the ceiling 3 stories high and painted with the crest. On display are 1300 pieces of weaponry. On the walls of this central room guns and spears and all sorts of weapons are presented in circles and arcs all very artistically displayed. In show cases about the room there are daggers and powder horns, whilst in the hall there was a set of armour and some cannon balls.
Another room had many family portraits and one of them was a Gainsborough, while a cabinet contained enough exquisite family silver to keep any common burglar happy. Elsewhere I saw a display table full of ancient bronze and Neolithic age items that one of the dukes had collected over a period of time; mostly they had been found on Tiree. There were nails and pins, some flnt knives, and a few other bronze artefacts.
Upstairs were more rooms containing more paintings and family items, especially a big family tree going as far back as 1100. Back in the 19th Century one of the Dukes married Louise, one of the daughters of Queen Victoria. There was a painting of her on one of the walls.
A bedroom with a big four poster bed had a canopy that was covered in the Campbell tartan. The Argylls are of the Campbell Clan. Another circular room off this bedroom, part of another tower, had more recent photos of the family members. Downstairs we could see the kitchen much as it was around the early 1900’s. It is not used now, a more modern one had been installed somewhere else in the castle. This one had many really good copper pots and pans hanging up around the walls. There are two baking ovens, one for bread and pastries, the other for meats and suchlike. Two hot tops for boiling water and cooking food on, and a bit rotisserie for roasting a pig or perhaps several fowl on. In the centre of the room were the big wooden work benches. The washing up wouldn’t have been done here but in the scullery, a separate room off the kitchen. It was a good castle to visit with plenty to see.
The village of Invarare is not very large and relies mainly of the tourists that come to visit the castle. It’s quite a pretty little place standing on the edge of the lock as it does. The buildings are all built of the same dark stone as the castle.
As we continued on down the lock we came to a view point where we got a wonderful view over several locks and channels between the islands. It was a beautiful sunny day and there were many sailing boats and other pleasure craft out and about on the water.
Some way further on we came to some ancient stone carvings. These are somewhere between 3500 and 6000 years old. To reach them we had a lovely walk along a path up a hill side through the bracken and heather, a small wood of birch trees and alder, then an area of spruce trees and some blackberry bushes. The carvings were on some large rock faces and clustered together in groups. They consisted of ‘cup and ring’ design. The cup is a small hollow that has been chiselled out with a flint knife, about 1.5cm deep and 4 cm diameter and the rings are shallow circular channels. Often the rings are concentric around the cup, but not always. On some a cup will be incorporated into the ring or placed randomly between rings. There are other channels too, straight ones, seemingly at random to everything else. Archaeologists are trying to see some meaning is all this and no doubt they will eventually come up with some theory about what all these things mean but they haven’t yet done so.
Not far from here in the Kilmartin Glen we saw some ancient stone cairns and standing stones. These all date from much the same period. The stone cairns have been burial places. In one it is possible to see a stone lined burial chamber, one of several that have been found in the cairn. These were excavated long ago and it was found that some bodies had been cremated while others hadn’t. The remains of many bodies were found in each tomb.
Six standing stones in a field of grazing sheep look to me like someone has started a project that they couldn’t be bothered finishing. There are 4 stones in a line, they two 30m away. The tallest is 4m high and would have taken a great deal of effort to get it there and upright. They are all packed with small stones to keep them upright so they must have quite a length below ground too. A small ‘henge’ was near here, that’s a stone circle but the stones on this were much smaller, and there was a ditch inside the stones and a mount outside of them and another tomb in the middle with the big stone grave slab still there. The slab had been placed over the grave. Apparently all these things are on some ancient trade route. There were some more cairns around but these stones were all beginning to look like each other so we didn’t bother with looking at more.
In the village of Kilmartin we called at the church to see some more grave slabs, but these were much more recent than those in the sheep fields. These were from the 13th century onward and were carved by local craftsmen. Some of them had a warrior carved on them, others intricate patterns and Celtic crosses. These slabs were placed flat on the ground over the grave originally, though now some of the better ones are standing upright in a special undercover enclosure to protect them from weathering. When we looked around the graveyard we noticed that there were many in one area that had a skull and crossbones carved on them but we read no mention of them anywhere and we wondered why they would have had this pattern when it is usually associated with pirates.
On the northwestern end of Lock Awe we came across an interesting church. It was built by one Walter Douglas Campbell and is dedicated to St. Conan who is believed to have lived in the area at one time. It’s not an old church only finished in 1930, but it is absolutely unique. This Walter Campbell moved to the area with his mother and sister around 1906 and built a small chapel for his mother as she didn’t want to travel a long distance to go to church. Not happy with the chapel he then designed this church himself, putting in everything he thought might look good so that we now have quite a lovely building that is a mishmash of various designs. It is very large and the cloister has a patterned lead roof, there is a square Saxon tower, some gargoyles chasing a hare, and a Celtic cross are high up on another part of the roof, there are more pointy bits here and there.
Inside the oak wood beams in the nave came from a wrecked sailing ship and there is a many pained, clear glass window in one of the side chapels that was got from a demolition yard but had been in a church in England somewhere. This is a very large church, and even now the village is quite tiny.
The site was not levelled to begin with so one end of the building is very high when the land drops down towards the lake. The rock used in construction wasn’t quarried but rolled down the hill and cut to size on site. It sits on the edge of a steep bank overlooking the lock with a splendid view over the lock to the hills beyond. This Walter Campbell wasn’t an architect and was told at one point that his design wouldn’t stand up, so he made a scale model and ran a steam engine over it and it survived intact so he built his church and its standing well enough too. Not himself though, he died shortly before it was finished, after both his mother and sister.
Nor far from the church we came to the hydroelectric power station and went on a tour there. The generator and all 4 turbines are underground in huge tunnels that have been carved out of the black granite. It was constructed from 1959 to 1965, and opened by the Queen in that year. The water to run the turbines in stored in a ‘bowl’ in the mountains that was carved out by glaciers in the past. It holds 10,000,000 cm of water and can run the turbines for 16 hours. This power station is only used to supply power in peak demand times so it doesn’t have to generate power on a continuous basis. Those turbines can be producing electricity within less than one minute when it’s required. During off peak times the water is pumped back from the lock to that ‘bowl’ reservoir in the mountains using electricity that is bought back at a cheaper rate.
And so we drove into Oban on a very wet afternoon with the cloud down very low and the sea a forbidding looking grey.
© Lynette Regan 4th October 2007
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