Ross DE Macphee PhD, Curator of Mammals at the AMNH, proposed in a recent paper that further study of the (single-species) walrus may provide insight into the origin of our Chessmen: Some have argued that the Lewis Chessmen were created in Iceland rather than in present-day Norway. In this regard, the prehistoric distribution of Odobenusrosmarus may be [...]
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Read more →A list of tenants of the villages that then comprised Ardroil, with their rents and accumulated arrears. From the Seaforth Muniments (the Estate records). First Capadal and Pennydonald: Tenant Rent Arrears Donald Matheson £ 5.3.6 £ 16.13.0 Norman Morrison £ 5.3.6 £ 19.17.11 Duncan Macritchie £ 5.3.6 £ 13.8.2 Norman Macleod £ 6.10.0 £ 15.12.10 [...]
Read more →Ardroil (Eadar Dha Fhadhail – ‘between two fords’) lies on the southwestern side of Uig Sands. The area now occupied more or less by the village once contained five townships: Capadal, Peighinn Dhomhnaill (Pennydonald), Baile Nicol, Baile Ghriasaich and Baile Ghobhainn. These were cleared by Stewart Mackenzie, the proprietor of the island, in the late [...]
Read more →From a statement lodged with the Crofters Commission by the Estate management in November 1888, showing alterations made over farms in Lewis, with the occupancy and rent of each during the period 1844-1888. Mealista, Keannhusly and Island Mealista 1844-49 Alex and John MacRae £80.0.0 1850 do. £105.0.0 1860 do. £120.0.0 1870 John Mitchell £130.0.0 1886-87 [...]
Read more →An account of the cattle sales at Ardroil from the People’s Journal, 27 September 1958. In the Outer Isles the folk who make their living off the land can’t come to the market. So the market goes to them. And the cattle sales may well decide whether the crofter and his family have a good year or a bad year.
Read more →Last week the Chessmen were featured on the BBC as part of the British Museum’s History of the World in 100 Objects, a superbly imaginative series of short and engaging lectures from Neil Macgregor. Of the Chessman he says: [Bobby] Fischer declared “chess is war on a board”, and at that moment in history it [...]
Read more →[singlepic=1135,383] Chrissie Matheson 2 Ardroil, and Chirsty Bell, Scoddaidh Mor and Scoddaidh Beag, 5 Ardroil, with Suainebhal behind.
Read more →Intriguing, isn’t it. There will be a full film in due course. Script by Eric Macdonald; produced by Theatre Hebrides.
Read more →[singlepic=1081,320,240,,left]Comann Eachdraidh Uig played host last week to a visit from two experts on the Lewis Chessman, who hit the headlines in November with their theories relocating the find-site to Mealista, rather than Ardroil. Dr David Caldwell, Keeper of Scotland and Europe at the National Museum of Scotland, and Dr Mark Hall, curator at Perth [...]
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 [...]
Read more →An article published in Mediaeval Archaeology this week raises some questions about the origins of the Uig Chessmen. From the BBC today: New research has cast doubt on traditional theories about the historic Lewis Chessmen. The 93 pieces – currently split between museums in Edinburgh and London – were discovered on Lewis in 1831. But [...]
Read more →Pictures also viewable here if the slideshow doesn’t work for you. [slideshow=43] Thanks to Iain Watson for these pictures and his memories of scout camps in Uig. The pictures were all collected by Don Laing, who used to be a Scout Leader in Stornoway for many years from the early 60′s until he died in [...]
Read more →[singlepic=907,291] From DDC Pochin Mould’s West over Sea, another telling of the familiar story of the ship’s boy who was murdered for the Lewis Chessmen by an Uig gillie. The story as told by Rev Col AJ Mackenzie, brother of Roderick Mackenzie, the keeper mentioned below, is also given by Dolly Doctor in his Tales [...]
Read more →Fearchar (Farquhar) Macdonald, son of Angus, was about born about 1809 at Capadal, roughly on the site of 3 Ardroil. In 1832 he joined the Hudson’s Bay Company, as a “slooper” – a crewman on HBC decked vessels. According to the Company’s personal records, he boarded the Prince Rupert IV on 23 June 1832 for [...]
Read more →[singlepic=615,327] Uig is a hive of activity this afternoon.
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 [...]
Read more →The definitive short guide to our Uig Chessmen, found in Ardroil in 1831, is The Lewis Chessmen, by James Robinson of the British Museum, which addresses aspects of their discovery, design and likely provenance, and also the history of chess. Of our little family of courtly Vikings, the berserkers are the most intriguing. From the [...]
Read more →Donald Òg, younger son of Dugald Macaulay of Brenish and himself tacksman of Brenish and Ardroil ca. 1740-1762, left, like many of the Macaulays, a lasting impression on the oral tradition of the area. Among his characteristics were a taste for swordfighting, and a certain delight in the vastness of his herd: evidently when his [...]
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 [...]
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