The Uig Landscape Project (Durham University) is looking at sites around Crowlista, including the old settlement of Bereiro at the head of Traigh na Sruban. The last inhabitant of Bereiro was Donald Matheson, born about 1794, who was a Hudson’s Bay man, returned to Uig, and emigrated again in 1834.

This story comes from the end of the 18th century, but seems to hark back to an earlier time.  However it is likely that the Viking element was grafted on later – did Vikings pick up local pilots? And potatoes didn’t arrive in the islands until the middle of the 18th century, and even by the 1790s there was a resistance to growing them. However: Some Uig men were out fishing around the Flannan Isles, and a Viking longboat came along and asked for a local person [ » read more ]

From the files, a delivery note for lab supplies for Crowlista School in 1934. The list includes tubes and corgs, jars and other equipment, and a small quantity of chemicals. They were supplied by WB Nicolson of Bath Street, Glasgow, and shipped by MacBrayne at a cost of 4/- for two boxes.

Crowlista is located in Uig in the west of Lewis, on the north side of Camas Uig and the Traigh Mhor. It is an old settlement, with rocky ground in contrast to the machair around the other parts of the bay. It was the only township in the area not to have been cleared for large-scale farming in the 19th century. The township was lotted as 25 small crofts circa 1850, in narrow strips of land running west-east to the shore. It was relotted in [ » 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 ]

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 ]

Dr Duncan Maclennan served as the doctor in West Uig from 1935 to 1945. A native of Stornoway, he studied at Aberdeen and Uig was his first post. He was greatly liked throughout the district, as this piece from the Stornoway Gazette on the occasion of his leaving demonstrates: 20 July 1945 On Tuesday, 3rd July, in Crowlista School, Dr and Mrs Maclennan were met by a large company of friends who had gathered to present them with a token of appreciation of Dr Maclennan’s professional services in the [ » read more ]

John Nicholson 3 Crowlista, Peter Angus Maclean 8 Timsgarry; and a Macdonald from 5 Crowlista.  Can anyone identify the ladies, or where this is taken?

Stornoway Gazette, 17 May 1940 Some of the people of Crowlista were the spectators of a very unusual sight last Tuesday.  While the 1pm news was being broadcast, a sheep belonging to Angus Matheson was labouring to give birth to quadruplets.  We regret that two of the lambs were dead on being delivered but the other two are doing well.  Triplest are rarely seen here and so far as we know this is the only instance of quadruplet lambs within living memory.  This sheep dropped [ » read more ]

Translated from an interview with An Geal, John Maclennan, born 1896 at 15 Kneep and married at 4 Aird, Uig. The Admiralty ship the Iolaire taking servicemen home to Lewis grounded on the Beasts of Holm outside Stornoway, on the 1st of January 1919. Almost two hundred men perished. Translated by Maggie Smith. At the end of December 1918, on leave and travelling back to Lewis with other servicemen from Uig, we planned to arrive home on New Year’s day and surprise the families. Approaching [ » 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 ]

New to our bookshop are some numbered and signed copies of a recent limited publication by David SD Jones entitled Salmon and Sea Trout Angling on Lewis and Harris, Past and Present.  The book looks at the fish, principle rivers, fishing hotels, associations, notable anglers and recorded catches throughout the two islands. The Fhorsa.  Considered to be one of the best salmon and sea trout systems on Lewis at the present time, the Fhorsa flows out of Loch Suainebhal into Loch Stacsavat, then takes a [ » read more ]

The remains of the old school at Crowlista (with Forsnaval behind).  There is a tradition of there having been a Gaelic school in the village, and documents indicate that one was established there in 1837-8 (though we don’t know for how long), and a Sgoil na Leddies in the 1850s. The 1861 census shows several children as scholars but no teacher, at least on census night.  The 1871 census gives schoolteacher John MacRury (sometimes mistranscribed as Mackay) living in Crowlista with his younger brother John [ » read more ]

Hector Maclean, who wrote to his sister Annie (Nurse Ruadh) from the Transvaal in 1902, died of enteric fever five months later.  From the Highland News (?), 1903: Sad Death of a Young Man.  Information has been received at Crowlista, Uig, from Heidleberg, South Africa, of the death from enteric fever of Hector Maclean, a native of the parish.  Deceased, who was a promising young man, was for some years employed in Edinburgh with Mr D Stewart’s well-known firm.  About three years ago he offered [ » read more ]

Annie Maclean, Nurse Ruadh, was born to 12 Crowlista in 1872 and served as district nurse in Uig before taking up the post in Tarbert, where she worked until her death in 1940, and was much loved.  The following is from the Stornoway Gazette: It was with deep regret that we learned of the death at Tarbert, Harris, of Annie Maclean, known in Uig and Harris as the Nurse Ruadh.  Born at Crowlista 68 years ago, the youngest daughter of the late Mr and Mrs [ » read more ]