There are no safes for breaking in the Outer Hebrides… but we didn’t go hungry in 1972.

David SD Jones, author of a number of books and articles on gamekeeping and sporting estates, has produced a new history of Morsgail, the 14,000 acre estate extending from Kinlochroag to Hamnway and Loch Langabhat. It was laid out in 1850 by Sir James Matheson and used as a summer residence and to entertain guests with grouse shooting, salmon fishing and deer stalking. The book looks in detail at the development of the estate, the tenants under the Mathesons and Leverhulme, the subsequent owners (including [ » read more ]

The renowned naturalist William MacGillivray was born in Aberdeen in 1796 and studied and worked most of his life there or in Edinburgh, but he had a Harris connection through his father and spent much of his childhood at Northton in South Harris (where the MacGillivray Centre now bears his name). As a young man, he returned to spend 1817-1818 there, and his diaries of that period have been published as A Hebridean Naturalist’s Journal (Acair 1996). In October of 1817 he and a party [ » read more ]

Many thanks to Donald J Macleod of Enaclete and Bridge of Don for his research into the fishing boats of Uig. He adds that these boats used lines and not trawls to catch white fish. It was the end of March and beginning of April that was known as the ‘Hungry month’ in Gaelic as fish did not take the bait. See the chart. I’m not sure where this leaves our Rose (above), apparently SY 47 – more research required. The following Uig fishing boats [ » read more ]

The Uilleam Dubh on the pier at Hushinish; photo by John J Maclennan. This little story revealed itself in stages: thanks to John J Maclennan especially, and to Finlay Maciver, Shonnie Buchanan and Calum Maclennan Govig for piecing it together.  The Uilleam Dubh has been a Scarp boat for many years, and the suggestion was that she was built in Brenish, and/or by a Malcolm Maclean of the famous Maclean boatbuilders of Uig, and called after her builder or owner.  These Macleans were in Mangersta, [ » read more ]

In December 1900, the lighthouse on Eilean Mor in the Flannan Isles, which had only been lit for the first time a year previously, was discovered deserted by its three keepers; their dinner table had been set with cold meat, pickles and potatoes, and a chair was overturned in an obvious urgent departure.  Two sets of oilskins and seaboots were missing, and otherwise the quarters and lamp were in perfect order.  The last record, on a slate ready for transferral to the log book, was dated 15 [ » read more ]

From The Times, 2 March 1858 (with a geographical infidelity) Enormous Shoal Of Dogfish. – From all quarters we are furnished with information regarding the appearance of a prodigious shoal of dogfish along the whole north-east coast of Scotland, and as far as to the westward of the Lewis. This circumstance, so unusual at this early period of the year, and without precedent in the memory of the oldest fishermen so far as the size of the shoal is concerned, has raised quite a commotion [ » read more ]

Winter was always a difficult time for the inhabitants of St Kilda, but the winter of 1876-77 was unusual.  From the Transactions of the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, 1878: When the factor, Mr M’Kenzie, with MacLeod’s vessel, did not put in an appearance in autumn last year [1876], as usual, the inhabitants at once began to make preparations for the winter’s store. Last harvest was very bad with them, and they knew they would be short of meal; and from the first they [ » read more ]

Stornoway Gazette, 30 December 1949. It is many years since there was a fishing boat of any size in Uig but four Uigeachs arrived in Stornoway on Tuesday of last week with a 45-foot motor-boat which they have purchased in Inverness. The boat will take her new name from the initials of the four owners – KJ Mackay, who is the skipper, and the three brothers L, D and A Macdonald – giving the name ‘Kilda’. The ‘Kilda’ is powered by a 36-horsepower diesel engine [ » read more ]

From Uig, A Hebridean Parish, 1960. The photo of Brenish is by Sam Forrest, taken on land court business in 1965. More of his pictures in the gallery. Brenish has a south-westerly aspect whilst Islivig faces north-west; in both the elevation of the crofts decreases seawards from about 125 ft in the east to 50-25 ft in the west. Only on croft in Islivig, and the eight most southerly crofts in Brenish, run to the sea – the rest obtain some shelter from a line [ » read more ]

This report from Hansard, the official report of debates in the House of Commons, dates from December 1893 and refers to illegal steam trawling in Loch Roag and, at least nominal, interest in defending the rights of local fishermen, preferably without requiring them to take three days out to testify in Stornoway.  This is the first I’ve heard of this but we’ll try to find more detail. MR. WEIR (Ross and Cromarty) I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether proceedings have been taken [ » read more ]

From Uig, A Hebridean Parish, by HA Moisley and the Geographical Field Group, 1960. The crofting population of Uig started the second half of the nineteenth century with far less land than had been occupied by their forebears fifty years before, and, although famine, clearance and emigration had slightly reduced the population between 1841 and 1861 (from 3828 to 3630) thereafter it again increased, reaching 4600 in 1891.  Rising agricultural prices after 1850 favoured farmers and crofters alike but, whilst the farmers prospered, the crofters [ » read more ]

This article was written by Elly Welch and first appeared in Events.  Thanks to Elly for permission to reprint and for the photo of John Macaulay with the Rose.  More pictures of the boat (before and during) can be found in the gallery. Wandering along Valtos harbour a year ago you would hardly have noticed an old relic called Rose. Engulfed in undergrowth, all sun-bleached larch and broken thwarts, she was just another old boat rotting on the shore. Walk there today and it is [ » read more ]

An further extract from the unpublished memoirs of Rev Col AJ Mackenzie, born Kinlochresort in 1887.  Here he tells of how the family came to be at Kinlochresort, and also how they left it for the gamekeeper’s house at Uig Lodge.  His account of the pleasures of Traigh Uig is here. My father was a gamekeeper who worked on the Gruinard Estate (Wester Ross). It happened he had made the acquaintance of two brothers named Paget who were impressed with his qualities both as a [ » read more ]

The Rose was built c1905 by John Macaulay, boatbuilder, of 19 Brenish.  She was first taken to Kneep, then Reef, and latterly belonged to a consortium of Valtos men.  In 2007 she was gifted to the Comann Eachdraidh, and we commissioned another John Macaulay, boatbuilder, from Harris, to restore her to her former glory.  The intention is not to return her to the water but to preserve her in situ on Valtos Pier as a reminder of the skill and knowledge of both the boatbuilders [ » read more ]