Tag: history
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Sponish House: Industrial Echoes at Loch Nam Madadh
I faced a choice for today’s photo: a Mesolithic Chambered Cairn or a Neolithic Stone Circle. Both tempting, both suitably mysterious. But they can wait. Instead, here is Sponish House, a 19th-century structure crouched on the shore of Loch Nam Madadh. Built for Lord Macdonald’s chamberlain or sheriff, it later served as a sporting lodge.…
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Dùn an Sticir: Where the Skulker was Captured
New island, new weather. We drove off the ferry at Berneray into sheets of rain, with gales on the way. The forecast promises little joy, so we will be hunkering down until the storm has had its fun. Before the worst of it, I managed to photograph Dùn an Sticir, set on a small islet…
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Rubh’ an Teampaill
Perched at the edge of this headland, a crumbling medieval chapel stands forlorn. Its gables and walls almost reach full height, but its purpose has long since faded. Believed to date from the 15th or 16th century, the building sits atop a stony mound, hinting that it was merely the last in a long sequence…
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Clach Mhic Leoid
A lone standing stone on a windswept Hebridean headland, Viking graves nearby, hints of lost structures beneath the sand—Clach Mhic Leoid keeps its secrets well.
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Valtos: A Quay Built After the Storm
A village built on stone, debt, and salt water. Boats lost, promises broken, and a quay that came when the fishing was in decline. This is Valtos.
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The Bernera Riot of 1874
An idyllic beach yet hiding a dark history. In 1874, crofters defied a tyrannical factor, faced eviction, marched in protest, and won. It was the beginning of the fight for land reform in the Hebrides.
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Taigh a’ Bheannaich
A ruined chapel, vanishing huts, and a handful of monks who chose isolation on the edge of the Atlantic. Taigh a’ Bheannaich is where faith met the wind and held fast for 1,400 years.
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A Day Among Norse Horizontal Mills
A day of water-mills—horizontal ones, no less. We visited eight, or so I believe; one quickly loses count. It took me some time to grasp how they worked. The water wheel sits flat in a channel, its blades catching the water and spinning the millstone directly above. No gears, just force and gravity. The mills…
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Hulne Abbey: Where Friars Once Prayed, now a Nice Little Earner
It begins, as it so often does, with a memory. A passing mention of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves—was it truly only yesterday?—and already the location scouts of fate have dragged us to another of its sites, like an ear-worm in your head. Hulne Abbey. Founded in the 13th century by Carmelite friars in search…
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The Forgotten Incline of Ingleby Moor
I had heard the National Park was up to something on the old railway incline up Ingleby Moor, so I went to see what the fuss was about. This is not the famous incline that once carried ironstone from Rosedale. It is one that runs roughly 350 metres to the south, leading to the Ingleby…