One of my favourite Hebridean islands is Scarp. I well remember several visits to Harris in the 1990s, standing at the slipway at Hushinish looking over to Scarp. I had no idea then how to get there, and neither did anyone I asked. Over a decade later, in the spring of 2004, I finally set foot on the island during a cruise on Hjalmar Bjorge. Since then I have been fortunate to have visited Scarp a half dozen times. To date I've not had the chance to spend a night on the island, something I'd dearly like to do.
But between 1965 and 1971 several hundred travellers managed to do just that. During those six years there was a Gatliff Trust hostel on Scarp, truly the most remote hostel in Britain, even more remote (in terms of accessibility) than the Trust's hostel at Renigidale. To date I have not been able to identify where the Scarp hostel was. I am guessing in the village near the shop and phone box, but that is pure speculation. Brian Harper, a spring/summer resident of Scarp for many years, has no idea where it was. And neither does John Humphries, who has been involved in the Gatliff Trust for a long time.
The only information I can find on the Scarp hostel are the reports on its status published in the Gatliff Trust's yearly reports (which you can find here.) Put together, these reports provide a bare-bones sketch of the hostel's six-year life. What follows are excerpts from those reports relating to Scarp between the years 1965 and 1972. Placed between each year's report are photos from a cross-island walk made over the top of Scarp in 2013: sights those visitors to the hostel would have seen, and remembered.
The 1965 Gatliffe Trust yearly report has this first mention of Scarp: There is good prospect of our having next summer the use of old thatched houses in the islands of Scarp and Berneray.
The 1966 report states: The Scarp hostel opens. 75 bednights recorded. Scarp is harder to get to than Renigidale as the mailboat only makes the crossing every other day, and the twice-weekly bus to Husinish does not run on those days. Those who went found it very well worthwhile; for Scarp is not only beautiful in a rugged way but probably the most 'apart' of all islands still inhabited in the Hebrides and gives a very special welcome to visitors.
The 1967 report states: 95 bednights recorded. Scarp is more difficult to reach, because the bus service is scanty, hitching not to be relied on and the sea crossing infrequent and sometimes difficult. But those who are prepared to sleep out for a night on the way, or in sufficient numbers to meet the expense of special transport or a boat, and have several days to spare, can find it an even more rewarding adventure. A boy of 17 wrote "No one is likely to forget the strange feeling of having suddenly been washed up on the shores of a Tristan da Cunha." The hostel had last summer rather more use than we had ventured to hope. An American hosteller commented: "Most enjoyable stay anywhere made more so by the hospitality of the MacLennans and the people of Scarp."
The last entry in the 'house book' for 1976 is a suggestion to advertise the Scarp hostel more widely, and include it in the S.Y.R.A. handbook. Just following this comment, but in different handwriting, is: "No please don't. Let it be the wonderful surprise to others as it was to us."
The 1968 report states: 107 bednights recorded. The Maclennans have left Scarp and live at West Tarbert, but Norman Macinnes has taken charge of the hostel. He and others however are probably leaving before long, and it may be that the island must become a sheiling lived in only during the summer.
The 1968 report states: 60 bednights recorded. Angus and Joan MacLennan have retired to the mainland, and, sad as it is to see old people leave their island homes, no doubt it's best they should go where life is easier. Norman McInnes, who took over, is still there and we are glad to hear he'll be for another summer at least. Fewer hostellers reach Scarp than Howmore or Rhenigidale, but those that do find it very rewarding. A visitor wrote "To stay in Scarp hostel is a great privilege; the house is a living page from the folk history of Scotland." It's strangely moving to find this written of the most primitive hostel in Britain.
Scarp from all we hear will be lived-all-the-year-round-in for a little while yet, but as those who live there get older it may not be possible or indeed right that they should remain much longer. If not it may still be possible for some of them, and some of you who love the island, and such bodies as the Schools Hebridean Society to keep it lived in in summer, a live sheiling, including the hostel.
The 1970 report states: 146 bednights recorded. The news from Scarp was not so good. We heard in October that part of the roof had fallen in, and the house was no longer habitable. We were not clear which part, or whether it was due to Act of God (wind) or act of cow (grazing) - the hostel is believed to be the only inhabited house in Britain (except perhaps flats in the Barbican in the City of London) that has grazing grass on the roof.
At Easter however Michael Gerrish and two friends went over with a lot of polythene, found it was only the barn end that had fallen in, probably by act of sheep, not cow, and made the hostel part weatherproof for at any rate another summer, though perhaps after that the walls will fall in or out. Whilst more people are leaving the island, one or two are likely to remain all the year round, at any rate for some years. We are considering whether we should try to get the use of some other building.
The 1972 report states: Scarp, as we said in our last letter, had to be abandoned, and we were unable to find any replacement there; indeed, the island is no longer inhabited all the year round.
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The last year-round residents of Scarp left in 1971. Today it is only occupied for several months in the spring and summer. If you ever get a chance to visit Scarp, do it. It is a large island with some challenging terrain; an island that takes several visits to completely see, and those are the best kind.
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