It’s time to revive the Airigh Trail, and organise some sheiling walks. We should really do an epic walk to the remote ones, as the Comann Eachdraidh did, with Finlay as guide, some years ago. The pictures are from then. Suggestions regarding this year’s walks are welcome in the comments, or leave your name if you’d like an email when the walks are organised.  We haven’t done our Morsgail-Kinresort-Harris walk yet either.  Meanwhile a detailed guide and map to all the sheilings is in the [ » read more ]

In 1923, Lord Leverhulme began to dispose of his Lewis estates, first offering to give the island to its inhabitants.  Stornoway Town Council and Stornoway Trust accepted Lews Castle and the crofts around the town, but Lewis District Council feared that on the sporting and crofting estates the expenditure exceeded the income, and declined the offer.  Angus ‘Ease’ Macleod remarked that “some people might be inclined to say that the Lewis District Council failed to appreciate the historical significance, both to themselves, and to posterity, of [ » read more ]

From West Over Sea (1953) by DDC Pochin Mould. Near the sheep fank on the flank of Benisval there is, so they tell me, a stone commemorating the visit of Lord Campbell, Lord Chief Justice in the 1850s. When I splashed through the Kinloch Resort river, I crossed from Harris into Lewis, and it was Lord Campbell’s boundary that I went over. There was a long dispute concerning the boundary line between Harris and Lewis in this part of the country. Along Loch Seaforth there [ » read more ]

The following was written by Maggie Smith for Hebridean Connections.  The genealogies of all the known inhabitants of the island of Vuia – uninhabited since 1841 – can be found here. Life on the island of Vuia Mhòr was hard, with little fertile land and no safe anchorage. The peats were cut and harvested in Drovinish and taken home by rowing boat or sail. Boats had to be beached after each fishing trip. Amongst the inhabitants were the family of Neil Macleod, who had found [ » read more ]

By long and solid tradition in Uig, the spot where the Uig Chessmen were found in 1831 is held to be the Bealach Ban, a hollow in the dunes in Ardroil. In November of last year, a paper by Dr David Caldwell et al in Mediæval Archaeology proposed that, on the evidence of the Ordnance Survey Place Names book compiled by contractors from local information in the 1850s, the findspot may have been a few miles away at Mealista. Anna Mackinnon, Ardroil, wrote an initial [ » read more ]

Hugh Munro was minister at Baile na Cille for 46 years, until his death on 1 May 1823.  He was replaced the following year by Alexander Macleod, but there was nearly a different minister in Uig, which, given Rev Macleod’s strong attachment to and leading role in the evangelist movement that was just beginning to spread throughout the island, might have made for a very different history of the church in Lewis.  The following notice appeared in the Edinburgh Gazette on 2 July 1823: The [ » read more ]

“The wanderlust of the Uigeach”, from the Stornoway Gazette, 30 December 1949. Swedish timber houses allocated to West Uig are not to be built there. Owing to the depopulation of the district there is very little chance of finding tenants. When this news was given to the Lewis District Council by the chairman, Councillor John Maciver, there was a scramble by the other districts in the island to claim the houses. The houses had originally been allocated to West Uig in the hope that they [ » read more ]

Our Rose, painted by Anne McVean – notecards now available to buy from the museum.  Many thanks to Anne.

Another extract from Uig, A Hebridean Parish, compiled by HA Moisley and members of the Geographical Field Group, Universities of Glasgow and Nottingham.  This section was written by Pamela M Gough; see also the further detail on life in the townships. Soils are generally deep, and there are few rocky outcrops on the crofts which are fairly level.  In Brenish and Islivig, the soils are mainly peaty, becoming wetter in the west.  Where visible the subsoil is gravel or stony boulder clay.  In Mangersta the [ » read more ]

At the Uig Celebration dinner and ceilidh on Friday, there was an Uig quiz, compiled by Teen Anne Murray. Twenty questions; this site may help you with some of them but for most, you’re on your own.  Answers in the comments please. 1. Name the oldest and youngest people currently resident in Uig. 2. Recent excavations on Cnip headland uncovered Bronze Age burials.  Approximately how old would the burials be? 3. Coming from Stornoway on the B8011, there is a hill with a prominent bump [ » 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 ]

Donald Òg was the younger of two sons called Donald, born to Dugald Macaulay, tacksman of Brenish, in the late 17th century; he was the great-grandson of Domhnall Càm. Rev William Matheson’s columns on the Macaulays, published in the Gazette in the 1950s, include several stories about Donald Òg drawn from the Morrison manuscripts.  He writes: According to Morrison, Donald Òg Macaulay of “Brenish fought on the King’s side at Culloden”.  The historical basis of this statement is probably that in the Independent Company raised [ » read more ]

On 4 June 1883 the Napier Commission, chaired by Lord Napier, was in Miavaig to take evidence from crofters and others on issues surround land management and tenancy.  Among those interviewed was Norman Morrison, crofter and fisherman at Brenish, aged 61, who stated he had two milk cows, three young beasts, between fifteen and twenty sheep, and no horse, on a croft which he shared with his brother, who kept similar stock.  The following is slightly abridged. Have you been fairly elected a delgate by the [ » read more ]

The unclear demarcation of the boundary between the estates of Lewis and Harris was the cause for two sets of hearings in 1805 and 1850. The 1805 enquiry was pursued by Alexander Hume, Esquire of Harris, against the Right Honourable Francis, Lord Seaforth.  This was a judicial enquiry with local crofters giving accounts of where they understood the line of the boundary to be, based on information passed down from father to son over many generations. Malcolm Roy Matheson from Pennydonald was one of the [ » read more ]

The Napier Commission came to Miavaig on 4 June 1883, led by Lord Napier, and took evidence from Murdo Maclean, fishcurer in Valtos, Donald Matheson Kneep and Norman Morrison Brenish, and from the Chamberlain, William Mackay. Among the grievances enumerated by the crofters were issues to do with the keeper and shooting tenants in the area. Murdo Maclean: [The people] cannot do without heather ropes in order to fasten the thatch upon their houses. There is one day set apart by the gamekeeper upon which [ » read more ]