Work is underway in Reef on a new commemorative landmark commissioned by the Bhaltos Community Trust to mark the impact of land reform in Uig and throughout the island.

The Trust agreed at a public meeting to commission the monument to commemorate the 19th century Lewis land clearances, the 20th century raids by the Reef Raiders, more recent Scottish land reforms, and the creation of the Trust itself.  Marion Leven and Will Maclean, who created the landmark structures around Lewis at Pairc, Aignish and Gress, were commissioned to design the monument.

The Reef monment, Suileachan (‘lesson’),  will be constructed on an elevated, panoramic site in the village, with views over the surrounding land, sea and islands. The proposed structure has been designed with two circles, connected by a walled walkway. The eastern circle has a grey stone circular floor, inscribed with the names of the Reef Raiders. The walkway will lead the visitor through an archway, designed and constructed by Jim Crawford, to the west circle, overlooking the sea and islands of West Loch Roag, symbolically linking the past and the present.  This circle will have integrated seating inside and outside of the drystone walls and there will be an iron fire basket to provide a beacone which will be lit at times of celebration and commemoration. Suileachan will provide a future setting for cultural events as well as being aplace of reflection, contemplation and inspiration as it provides a panoramic view of the local area; it will describe the land struggle and its impact to visitors, and show the importance of working together to improve the future of our 21st century island century communities.

Suileachan has been designed to celebrate island craftsmanship and skills. The land around Bhaltos is defined by distinctive old stone walls, which will be replicated in the monument walls, constructed of stones from blackhouses in the area by an island stonemason.  The iron fire-basket will be made by a Stornoway blacksmith and the seating by a local craftsman from local stone and windblown trees from the Stornoway Trust.

The project has been made possible by funding from Scotland’s Islands, Community Regeneration Fund, Proiseact nan Ealan, Uig Community Council and the Bhaltos Community Trust, with the help of volunteers, the Comann Eachdraidh and Cllr Norman A Macdonald.

A launch event is being planned for March; watch local outlets for details.

26 Treasures is a project conceived last year at the V&A that inspires writers to respond to museum objects. This year the idea is national, so 26 writers chose artefacts from the Scotland gallery at the National Museum of Scotland and were required to write to, from or about their object, in exactly 62 words. Naturally, the Uig Chessmen are amongst them, having been selected by V Campbell; there’s also a lump of Lewisian Gneiss. Alexander Peden’s mask, the Maiden and the wee coffins of Arthur’s Seat are also there. The pieces (and pieces) are below (click Expand to pop open the booklet – the list of objects is on the last page) and the exhibition is open from today through 29 January 2012 at NMS in Edinburgh.

More information, including detail of the similar Welsh and Northern Ireland projects, can be found on the 26 Treasures website, as can a list of forthcoming events and a blog. You can also download the catalogue as a PDF and discover more about the individual objects here.

Following their Scottish tour, which culminated in a day’s ceilidh in Uig, some of the Chessmen have gone over the water for a gig in New York City. An exhibition of pieces from the British Museum opened this week at the Cloisters, the mediaeval galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and will continue to 22 April 2012, with a few special events scheduled.

The short video above (or here, if you prefer) looks at the significance of the chessmen from a different angle than we commonly talk about here. There are also articles about Lewis from the curator Barbara Boehm (we do get more than an hour of daylight in December, Barbara!) and about walrus ivory from Dr Ross DE Macphee. Finally, the New York Times has a short piece.

Six Lewis Chessmen from the collections of National MuseumsScotlandand the BritishMuseumare to go on display for a short time at UigMuseumon Tuesday 13 September.

A knight, pawn, warder, king, queen and bishop will be on display from 11.30am-4pm at UigMuseum, to mark the end of a major touring exhibition on the chess pieces at Museum nan Eilean, Stornoway. The Lewis Chessmen were reputedly found in a sandbank in the Parish of Uig in the 17^th century.

David Caldwell, Keeper of Scotland and Europe,National MuseumsScotlandand James Robinson, Curator, Department of Prehistory and Europe, British Museum will be on hand atUigMuseumto discuss the chessmen and answer queries from visitors.

Baile na Cille Church in Uig, now in private ownership, will also be open to visitors from 11am-4pm on 13^th September for Doors Open Day. The church was opened in 1829, two years before the chessmen were found, and the then minister, Alexander Macleod, was reportedly involved in their sale.

The short display will mark the end of the hugely successful touring exhibition The Lewis Chessmen: Unmasked, which has so far attracted over 119,000 visitors. It was shown at the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh;AberdeenArtGallery and Shetland Museum & Archives and is at Museum nan Eilean, Stornoway until 12 September. The exhibition has attracted over 20,000 visitors in five months in Stornoway and a day of storytelling, music and poetry will be held at Museum nan Eilean on 12September to mark the last day.

Dr David Caldwell, Keeper of Scotland and Europe,National MuseumsScotland, said:

“The last time there was an exhibition on the chessmen in Stornoway in 1995, we took some to Uig for the day, and we’re delighted to do so again. It’s an opportunity for local people to come and see the chessmen near their reputed findspot and I also recently suggested that they could have been found further along the coast, at Mèalasta, so it will be a chance to discuss the idea with them.”

James Robinson, Curator, Department of Prehistory and Europe,BritishMuseumsaid:

““We have been delighted by the success of the visit of the chessmen to Stornoway, with twice as many people coming to see them as last time they visited. This final step on their journey, to Uig, is a particularly important and exciting one.”

Sarah Egan, a member of historical society Comann Eachdraidh Uig, says:

‘We’re always delighted on the special occasions when the chessmen come home.  We’re hoping that the whole community will turn out to see them, as happened last time they were in Uig, and we have a few special events planned to mark the day. The finding of the collection is still fresh in local tradition, and we follow the research and speculation about their origins with interest. Our hope is that more interest will be given to their finding in Uig, and that that may lead to a better understanding of the Viking community here.’

National Museums Scotland has signed a partnership agreement with Museum nan Eilean for a further five years, to look at future loans, staff mentoring, peer support, and possibilities for joint projects to highlight the rich collections of both organisations. The British Museum has agreed to support the redevelopment of Lews Castle and to work with Museum nan Eilean over the same period.

The Lewis Chessmen were discovered on the western shore of the Isle of Lewis in 1831, as part of a hoard of walrus ivory. The hoard includes assembled pieces made of walrus ivory from at least four chess-sets, probably made in Norwayin the late 12^th or early 13^th century. As the largest and finest group of early chessmen to survive, they are one of the most significant archaeological discoveries ever made inScotland and are of major international importance. Few chessmen survive at all from the Middle Ages, and these are unparalleled in their high-quality, humour and intricacy of design.

The majority of chess pieces were acquired by the British Museumin 1831, in order to preserve the hoard as intact as possible in a public collection. They have been on permanent display ever since. Eleven pieces remained inScotlandand have been on display for many years – the last ten in a prime position in the National Museum of Scotland.

Baile na Cille Church in Uig will be opened to the public for two days in September as part of the 21st Doors Open Days event in Scotland.

Comann Eachdraidh Uig and the new owners of the building, Brian and Miranda Gayton, have joined forces to provide an opportunity for the community of Uig, and anyone with an interest in the history and architecture of the building, to explore the building, which remains as it was when last used for services, prior to the start of renovation works.

Information about the history of the church, a small collection of artefacts, photographs and plans for the redevelopment of the building as a private residence will be display.

The church will be open from 11am to 4pm on Saturday 10 September and Tuesday 13 September. The latter date is also the day the Chessmen will be in Uig, which, as Comann Eachdraidh Uig member Sarah Egan explains, is particularly appropriate.

“The church is relevant to the story of the chessmen as it was opened in 1829, two years before they were found, and the minister Alexander Macleod, whose evangelical preaching had grown the congregation to the extent that the new church building was needed, was also apparently involved in the sale of the chessmen,” she said.

The group Urras Bhaile na Cille had attempted to buy building from the Church of Scotland for the community but that campaign was unsuccessful.

The aim of the annual Doors Open Days event is to open up for free sites normally closed to public or which charge an admission fee. More than 250,000 visits are regularly made to over 900 sites across Scotland, from the Scottish Borders to the Shetland Isles.

This year marks Doors Open Day’s 21st birthday as it began in Glasgow and Ayr in 1990 during the European City of Culture celebrations. It is coordinated nationally by the Scottish Civic Trust with support from Historic Scotland and EventScotland. The event takes place every September, along with Scottish Archaeology Month coordinated by Archaeology Scotland, to link in with European Heritage Days which sees millions of visitors in 50 countries explore a wide range of sites.

Civic societies, local authorities, heritage and building preservation trusts act as area coordinators, and are supported by many volunteers numbering over 5,500 at last count who gave up the equivalent of 18 working years without a holiday! The economic impact of the event is similarly impressive with more than £25 million generated for the Scottish economy over the event’s lifetime.

Tickets are £1 per strip, available from the tearoom in the Community Centre any time up to and including Latha na Fir Tailisg. If you’d like to buy tickets by post (I suggest a minimum of 5 at a time) drop us an email at sarah@ceuig.com and we’ll sort you out.

The draw will be on 13 September and the winner will be announced here and on our Facebook page.

A new committee was elected, namely:

John Maciver, Ardroil
Donald Maciver, Crowlista
Fin Morrison, Reef
Teen Anne Murray, Valtos
Sheila Henderson, Valtos
Domhnall Calum Morrison, Valtos
Sarah Egan, Ardroil

Bob Mears, Breanish
Hugh Henderson,  Valtos
Elspeth Logan, Valtos
Gwen Hoskins, Miavaig

These last four are new committee members and we are delighted to welcome them aboard; office bearers will be appointed at the first regular meeting.   There are a few places vacant still and we can co-opt, so past members who weren’t able to come to the AGM or new folk who’d like to join the committee are invited to make their desires known to any of the above.  We also welcome volunteers for manning the museum, doing research and in the forthcoming programme for refreshing our museum displays.

General membership fees for 2011 (£2 per person per year) are now due and a list and donations box will be available in Uig Shop from this weekend, or you can let us know if you’d like to pay another way (01851 672 456 afternoons, or by email). Membership entitles you to free admission to the museum, a vote on society business should anything ever be controversial (doesn’t happen very often) and the satisfaction of supporting our dedicated volunteers and worthy labours.

And if you’d like to see what this is all for:

An RCAHMS archaeological team has completed a detailed survey of the virtually-inaccessible island of Borerary, in the St Kilda archipelago, uncovering evidence of a farming community possibly dating to the Iron Age. From the BBC, 17 June 2011:

The remains of a settlement which could date back to the Iron Age has been uncovered on a remote Scottish island, according to archaeologists.

It was previously thought Boreray in the St Kilda archipelago was only visited by islanders to hunt seabirds and gather wool from sheep.

Archaeologists have now recorded an extensive agricultural field system and terraces for cultivating crops.

They have also found an intact stone building buried under soil and turf.

Read the rest of the story here. Much more information, including pictures, is available on the RCAHMS website.

RCAHMS surveyor Ian Parker said, “This is an incredibly significant find, which could change our understanding of the history of St Kilda. This new discovery shows that a farming community actually lived on Boreray, perhaps as long ago as the prehistoric period. The agricultural remains and settlement mounds give us a tantalising glimpse into the lives of those early inhabitants. Farming what is probably one of the most remote – and inhospitable – islands in the North Atlantic would have been a hard and gruelling existence. And given the island’s unfeasibly steep slopes, it’s amazing that they even tried living there in the first place.”

The Esra was a 412-ton, three-masted wooden barque from Norway and sailing with a cargo of timber and one passenger from Sandavall to Belfast. She was wrecked on Traigh na Clibhe on 3 November 1898 during a storm.  The 11 aboard were rescued by local men and the remains of the hull can still occasionally be seen in the middle of the beach at certain tides.

Wood from the ship was used throughout Uig, in Baile na Cille church, in fanks and houses and in fencing the whole of Ollashal, the hill behind Carishader which was used as grazing for Kneep.  How the bell came to be in the possession of Iain Uisdean isn’t clear.  If he hadn’t had it straight from the wreck, there would have been ample opportunity to trade for it, wherever it was in the district, as his brother Donald was travelling as far as Breanish with a horse and cart full of provisions.