30th June, Thursday Lewis and Harris

Lewis and Harris

Griais Memorial

This symbolises a croft split assunder.  Lord Leverhulme wanted to turn the area into 3 big farms to provide milk for the canning factory.  When he gave up with Lewis he offered to gift land to crofters he excluded those in Griais as he was so furious with their unhelpfulness.

Deep in “wee free” country

This arch of the jawbone of a blue whale is famous, not just for its size but the fact that the harpoon didn’t “go off” when it hit the whale.  After the whale was washed ashore the local blacksmith was seriously injured when it did go off when he was trying to remove the harpoon.

The blackhouse at Arnol occupied until 1964.

 

The humps in the foreground are storage cleits.  The little holes in the main building are windows

There are double thickness walls and there are steps up for dealing with the thatch.

The front door

Preserved ruin showing thickness of the walls

 

A peat fire (real) – the early Black Houses had a central hearth and no chimney

Box bed (not a real person in it)

A model of  the blackhouse.  From left to right: the room with the box bed (thatch not cut away), then room with the peat fire, then the lobby with the front door and where the chickens live and there is a door at the rear which goes through to the workshop and where the hay is kept, then on the right the byre.  The building slopes down from living to byre and there is a gully in the byre  which flows to the outside would also have been used by the humans.

A model of the village and the field system.  There are lots of abandoned black houses in the area

Ideas for MPs?

Gearrannan was abandoned in 1974 when the occupants were rehoused in newly built council houses nearby.  There is a cafe in one of them, a museum in another, a hostel in another and the others are self-catering cottages.

Field system

The runrigs were wide enough for one person to sow the seed from the centre

Museum – fire with chimney

 

Dun Charlaabhaigh broch

 

Canalais standing stones – in the shape of a celtic cross  with a hearth at the centre. There are 50 of them, some 15 ft high

The theory is they are lined up with the far hills which have the profile of a recumbent woman

Welcome to the Uig peninsula

 

Uig sands – the Lewis chessmen were found here by a cow.  Fortunately I did see some of these in the museum in Stornoway as there is a special exhibition and they are magnificent.  They are Viking, are 78 carved in walrus ivory, there are no red or black ones and reside in the British Museum and Edinburgh’s Museum of Antiquities.

The Uig museum was rather dull (I was the only one there) – usual crofting, viking, herring, clearance stuff.  And they didn’t have anything about Arthur Ransome, who was staying in Uig Lodge when he was writing “Great Northern?” here.  The only thing worth noting in the museum was the St Kilda mail boat.  The St Kildans would launch their post in the sea and just hope that the Gulf Stream and prevailing winds would enable it to hit a shore somewhere it would be found and opened.  More about St Kilda later…

Miabhaig harbour

Uig Sands

There are a number of tour operators who run out to St Kilda and, when I had a signal, I was ringing around to see if I could go out on one. The one from Uig, on a 200hp rib, couldn’t take me till the middle of July. However one of them, Kilda Cruises, operating out of Leverburgh (bottom of Harris) thought they might have room to take me on Friday the 1st at 7.30 am but I was to ring at 8.30 that evening to check. So I drove down through Harris – hilly and windy and raining – to Leverburgh. No phone signal so I went into what I thought was the local cafe to check where I could make a phone call only to find it was also a restaurant and they were able to fit me in and the food was excellent, so the Anchorage at Leverburgh is on the good food list.  After my exceptional meal (scallops) I made the phone call and, as there is room for me on the St Kilda trip, I reserved a table for me to eat at the Anchorage again on Friday night when I got back from St Kilda. I simply parked up on the pier for two nights.