[singlepic=1120,243] 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 [...]
Read more →To mark the expectation that our new Enaclete bypass will opening soon (surely), here’s a further extract from the unpublished memoirs of Rev Col AJ Mackenzie, who was born at Kinresort in 1887, son of the gamekeeper Roderick Mackenzie. The family moved in to the gamekeeper’s house at Uig Lodge in 1891, and a few [...]
Read more →From Islands Postal History Series, No 3: Lewis, by James A Mackay. Published by the author, 1978. Miavaig The Gaelic name Miabhaig is derived from an earlier Norse name whose vik ending signified a bay – in this case one of the many inlets of West Loch Roag on the west coast of Lewis. A [...]
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 [...]
Read more →New to us, a fine collection of pictures from the family of Roderick Mackenzie Sr, gamekeeper at Uig Lodge.
Read more →An further extract from the unpublished memoirs of Rev Col AJ Mackenzie, born Kinlochresort in 1887.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 [...]
Read more →An extract from the unpublished memoirs of Rev Col AJ Mackenzie, son of the gamekeeper Roderick Mackenzie. AJ was born in 1887 in Kinlochresort and moved with his family to the keeper’s house at Uig Lodge, where he began at Crowlista School. In May 1892 after the spring holidays, I began my formal education. I [...]
Read more →Donald Macdonald, Dolly Doctor, was born in 1891 in Stornoway, eldest son of John Macdonald Carishader and Annie Gillies, Shawbost and Stornoway. He studied at the Nicolson and at Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh, and practiced as a specialist in the west end of London. He married Emily Paul, niece of Lord Leverhulme (then proprietor of the [...]
Read more →From a manuscript by (as far as I can make out) Rev Col AJ Mackenzie, son of Roderick Mackenzie, gamekeeper at Luachair and Uig Lodge. According to tradition, men were compelled to join the army when Seaforth was raising the 78th Seaforth Highlanders in 1793. When he arrived in Lewis, the men of Uig took [...]
Read more →From Emily Macdonald’s Twenty Years of Hebridean Memories (1939). Emily and her husband Dolly Doctor owned Uig Lodge but it was permanently let to tenants. On our next two holidays in Lewis, we managed to get rooms in Uig for a few days’ visit to the part of the Island we loved so much. But there were [...]
Read more →From Emily Macdonald’s Twenty Years of Hebridean Memories (1939). In 1923 Emily, niece of Lord Leverhulme, was married to Donald Macdonald, Dolly Doctor, who had Uig connections and later wrote Tales and Traditions of the Lews. They were given Uig Lodge as a wedding present. Stornoway was reached some six hours after leaving Kyle, and we [...]
Read more →From Emily Macdonald’s Twenty Years of Highland Memories (1939). Before Emily was married to Dolly Doctor, she stayed at Uig Lodge as a guest of her uncle, Lord Leverhulme, along with other guests. One Sunday Mrs Strang and I decided we would like to go to the local church and hear a real Gaelic service. [...]
Read more →by Emily Macdonald, niece of Lord Leverhulme and wife of Dolly Doctor. Written in 1939 and privately published in 1965. An account of holidays in Lewis, marriage to Dolly Doctor, owning Uig Lodge and building Gisla Lodge, and general reminiscences 1918-1938.
Read more →by David SD Jones, February 2008. An illustrated history of the sporting estates, including Morsgail, Scaliscro, Grimersta, Uig & Hamnaway, Garynahine, Eishken, Barvas, Galson and others. Information from estate records and game books, detail of tenants and development programmes, and many photographs previously unknown to the Comann Eachdraidh, coming as they do from private collections [...]
Read more →Tradition in Uig tells of a “footprint stone”, a regularly-shaped block about 18″ square with a footprint depression, of the type associated with a saint and used for the crowning of local kings. The provenance and significance of the stone have been lost to local knowledge (unless someone can enlighten us) but it was highly [...]
Read more →Rev Col AJ Mackenzie, born 1887, was the son of Roderick Mackenzie, gamekeeper at Kinlochresort and subsequently at Uig Lodge. The young Alick spent his early years at Kinlochresort before moving with his family in 1891 to the keeper’s house near the Lodge, overlooking Traigh Uig, which clearly made a lasting impression on him. The story of [...]
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