Berneray Giants - Two

Islands called Berneray seem to grow some tall folks. There are two Hebridean 'giants' that I've heard of, and both came from Bernerays. The best known is Angus Macaskill, from the Berneray in the Sound of Harris. Born in 1825, he grew up in Nova Scotia where his family moved when he was six years old. Macaskill grew to a height of 7 ft, 9 inches, and performed a demonstration of strength for Queen Victoria. Macaskill lived to the age of 38, and there is a large memorial to him near the burial ground at the southwest end of Berneray. At Dunvegan (Skye) you can find a museum dedicated to Macaskill (see this link).

Angus Macaskill's memorial

There is another, and lessor known Berneray Giant, Peter Sinclair. He was from another Berneray, the one next to Mingulay (also known as Barra Head). Sinclair was postman for the isles south of Barra, and joined a travelling show at one time to capitalize on his seven-foot height. Unlike Angus McAskill, no cairn or museum commemorates Peter Sinclair. But the ruin of his house on Berneray still stands. It has been drastically altered for use as a sheep fank, but you can still see where he raised one end of it so he could stand inside.

Peter Sinclair's home on Berneray (Mingulay to the left)

Calum Ban MacKillop and the Macleod Gunnery - Berneray

I do not claim to know much about Calum Ban MacKillop of Berneray (1887-1937). I am only acquainted with him via a few, well written glimpses, in Alasdair Alpin MacGregor's Searching the Hebrides with a Camera (1933). In chapter 6 of the book, entitled Echoes of the Cromwellian Wars and the Jacobite Risings, MacGregor describes a walk on Berneray where he meets Calum Ban at an old building known as the gunnery of the MacLeods. MacGregor writes:

Here I am introduced to one Calum Ban MacKillop, whose very fair hair and bonnie blue eyes would put the spell on you. Calum Ban's eyes are the colour of forget-me-nots; and he is as fair as any Northman. This day he is eident with the hay-rake by an old building used as a barn in connection with the Town farm. This building is said to have been the gunnery of the MacLeods of Berneray. Placed above its entrance is a white marble slab bearing the Latin inscription, Hic natus est ille Normannus Macleod de Berneray, eques auratus - Here was born the illustrious Norman MacLeod of Berneray, a distinguished cavalier.

The gunnery

Calum Ban goes on to tell MacGregor the history of the 'gunnery', which I will not repeat here. This interesting structure, beside its use as a barn (see this RCAHMS link), may also have been an old chapel (see this RCAHMS link). 

Having read Searching the Hebrides with a Camera many times since acquiring it in 1992, I was excited when the opportunity arose to stay on Berneray in the late 90s as part of a trip to St Kilda. I wondered what ever happened to Calum Ban, and I also wanted to duplicate MacGregor's photo of the gunnery, which included Calum Ban (see below).

When I was on Berneray I stayed at Burnside Croft, a B&B run, at the time, by Gloria and Don Alick 'Splash' MacKillop. I asked Splash about Calum Ban, and he told me Calum was his uncle, and that he passed away at the age of 50, only a few years after MacGregor's book came out. He told me where Calum's grave was, and so I set out to pay my respects to Calum Ban of the bonnie blue eyes.

Burnside Croft lies at the west end of Borve. From there I crossed the machair to the grand white-sand west beach of Beneray; one of the most beautiful in the world; a three mile stretch of brilliant white sand. From its north end I climbed to the trig point atop Beinn Shleibhe, the highest hill on Berneray, and then descended a ridge to the south east. Halfway to the shore I came to a small, walled cemetery. In it I found the grave of Calum Ban MacKillop.

Grave of Calum Ban MacKillop

I don't think there are many of us MacGregor devotees these days, and so I doubt that, aside from family, anyone visits Calum Ban's grave. I paid my respects to this man who'd inspired MacGregor to write of him, and then descended to the shore. A half mile walk south took me to Baile, at the north tip of Bays Loch. Here I found the MacLeod gunnery, looking mostly the same as it did in MacGregor's old photo. I put the camera in timer mode, and then took a photo of myself standing in the spot where Calum Ban posed some 65 years earlier.

MacGregor's photo of the gunnery in 1930s - Calum Ban Mackillop at right

Standing where Calum Ban stood - I wish I'd taken off the sunglasses

On the following day I set out on my first trip to St Kilda. As the sailboat Annag departed from Berneray Harbour I could just make out the little cemetery on the hill that I'd visited the day before, where Calum Ban rests in peace. I was so glad that MacGregor's book had inspired me to visit Berneray, where I'd met Gloria and Splash MacKillop, and found Calum Ban's grave. MacGregor's experiences on Berneray led me to experience the island. And, although I did not know it at the time, his books would eventually inspire me to write about my own island experiences; experiences that, I hope, will inspire others to see amazing islands like Berneray; to learn their history and meet their people.

An Leac Bhàn - Berneray

One of my most cherished old books on the Scottish islands is Alasdair Alpin MacGregor's Searching the Hebrides with a Camera (1933). This wonderful book inspired me to find ways to set foot on remote isles such as the Monachs, Ensay, Pabbay and Killigray. It also sent me to the northern tip of North Uist, opposite Berneray, to search for a certain boulder that lies at An Leac Bhàn.

An Leac Bhàn (the white slab) had been the traditional ferry-point to Berneray, and a large boulder there marked the spot where, if you made yourself visible, the ferryman on Berneray would come fetch you. The stone is pictured in Searching the Hebrides with a Camera, and MacGregor writes about resting on it while waiting for the ferryman to come over:

Down through the silverweed and the iris-flags I linger to the foreshore at the Leac Bhàn, and seat myself upon a boulder that has known me for some years now. This boulder and I seem to recognize each other. It invites my weight with an intimacy convincing me that even the things men describe as inanimate object may have personality.

MacGregor's photo of An Leac Bhan (c. 1930s) - boulder at far right

During the spring of 1997 I found and sat upon MacGregor’s boulder. If I’d looked a year later I’d have been out of luck, for it became part of the Berneray causeway in 1998, buried under tons of quarried stone, never to be seen again. When I sat on it (last photo), waiting for the Berneray ferry the causeway would soon replace, the memories captured in my mind from reading MacGregor’s book came alive, and I was taken back sixty years to that day of wandering he so well described, a day when he sat at An Leac Bhàn awaiting the ferryman.

Looking towards Berneray from An Leac Bhan (1997)

Berneray ferry approaching An Leac Bhan (1997)

Seated on MacGregor's boulder - now buried under the causeway

The Berneray King-Stone

There are several inauguration stones in Scotland. The most famous is the Stone of Scone; stolen by Edward I in 1296, and placed under the Coronation Chair in Westminster Abbey until it was returned to Scotland in 1996. Although there are many who believe the stone Edward took was a fake, and that the true stone is still hidden in the Hebrides.

The early rulers of Argyll and the Islands had their own inauguration stones, with a footprint carved in them where the King-To-Be would place his foot. Dunadd is the best known of these, and if you make the easy climb to the top of the hill you will find a footprint. But if you put your foot in it you will not be following in the footstep's of kings; for the true stone-footprint lies under the concrete replica that caps the hill, lifted in place by a helicopter.

I've only heard of two inauguration stones in the Hebrides, both of them associated with the Lords of the Isles. The best known was on an island in Loch Finlaggan (Islay); but you can not put your foot on it these days, as at some point in time it was destroyed. The other Lord of the Isles' stone is on Berneray (Sound of Harris). The Berneray stone is near Cladh Maolruibhe (the burial ground of St Mealrubha), which lies atop a hill called Beinn a' Chlaidh (see this RCAHMS link for more). The site is easy to find as it has an eight-foot-tall standing stone.

Berneray Standing Stone - Pabbay in the distance

The Berneray Stone

One-hundred meters southwest of Cladh Maolruibhe is a jumble of stones that may have once been a large cairn. In amongst them lies a large slab with what I thought at the time had the form of a footprint chiseled out on top. It was not much of a footprint, appearing to have flaked away over the centuries. My boot fit, sort of, and so I celebrated my inauguration with a can of beer. 

Update April 27, 2021: I learned in 2021, many years after the visit described above, that the actual footprint stone lies  at NF 9116 8059, some 90 meters east of the stone I found - see this link. So I can no longer clam to be Lord of the Isles.

The Footprint Stone - or so I thought

A close fit - only off by 90 metres