It is always depressing to leave Iona. I needed something to cheer me up, so as we drove east across the Ross, I looked at my tattered OS Landranger Map 48 for inspiration. There were several inspiring notes I’d made on it over the years. One read: ‘Quarry used in Skerryvore’. The note pointed to Camus Tuath, a bay on the Ross between Iona and Bunessen, where the granite used in the Skerryvore light was quarried. To get to it required a two-mile round-trip walk. That would take at least two hours. We had a ferry to catch, so the quarry had to wait another time.
Another note on the map read: ‘Ardtun—leaf beds and like Giant’s Causeway.’ It is at Ardtun that you’ll find fascinating basalt pillars, exposed lava tubes, and fossil beds. But, like the quarry at Camus Tuath, seeing Ardtun would require a couple of hours. So far, my search for easy inspiration has failed. Then, as we neared the head of Loch Scridan, I noticed a two-word note on the map that read: ‘To Beatons’. An arrow next to the note pointed to one of those not very informative but still enticing, one-word notations the OS uses to mark historic sites. The word, printed in an ancient-looking Celtic font, was ‘Cross.’
And so we parked at a layby near Pennycross Farm (NM 5065 2619). That placed us 200 feet south of the cross. It was a difficult 200 feet. At the start, I had to jump across the slow-moving waters of Allt Ruaidh. From there, it was a slow walk across rocky terrain hidden under grass and heather. The cross was enclosed by a spiked iron fence, like those that guard the tombstones of the well-to-do or famous. JP MacLean describes the cross in History of the Island of Mull (1923):
This cross is rudely cut out of a block of slate, not belonging to the island. It is fixed by a well-cut mortice into a square block of Gribun sandstone, which rests on a pyramidal pile of basalt blocks from the immediate vicinity. There is a tradition that it was erected to the memory of one of the famous Beatons, that family being noted for success in the healing art. This belief probably owes its origin to the letters on the stone.
The cross, which may date to the eighth century, is named on some maps as Crois an Ollaimh, the cross of the doctor and is made of Moine granulite, not slate. Due to weathering and the continual erosion of a crusty, grey lichen, the letters on it were barely visible. A drawing in TS Muir’s Ecclesiological Notes on some of the Islands of Scotland records the inscription as 'GMB 1582 DMB.' According to the RCAHMS Inventory (Argyll Vol. 3, Item 319): ‘It seems probable that the initials stand for Gille-Coluim [Malcolm] MacBethadh and his son Domnall, members of the Beaton family who, before the 17th century, used the surnames MacBethadh and Mac an Ollaimh indiscriminately.’
As for why a memorial to the Beatons was placed at Pennycross, a half mile from Pennygael, a return to the well of information in MacLean’s History of the Island of Mull reveals the following:
John, the most celebrated of that race (the Beatons) lived at Pennyghael in Mull. Near his residence he had a botanical garden where he raised many different kinds of plants, with which he experimented, using such tests as should indicate what effect would result when administered for various diseases. It is probable that to this garden may be traced many exotic plants that long continued to be used for curative and other purposes.
The Beatons had the farm of Pennycross, and their home was on the old road near NM 50715 26057, some 500 feet southeast of where I’d parked. (Neither the house nor the road exists today.) The Beatons were famed for the use of healing plants. Their half-acre botanical/physic garden was sited within a three-sided enclosure shown on the 1880 OS Map centred at NM 5073 2610. Their vast herbal pharmacopoeia included wormwood for intestinal parasites, fennel for vision difficulties, foxglove for heart problems, rosemary for improving memory, St John’s Wort for depression, and thyme for respiratory diseases.
The Beaton name evolved from MacBethadh/MacBetha/MacBeth. They were physicians to the Lords of the Isles for over three centuries, and to quote from the book Hebridean Healers: The Beatons of Mull: ‘They were well educated at leading European medical universities and combined this knowledge with their herbal lore to effect successful cures, which earned great renown.’ In addition to Mull, there were Beaton doctors on Islay, Bute, Colonsay, Uist, and Skye. TS Muir mentioned the various branches of the Beatons in Characteristics of Old Church Architecture in the Mainland & Western Islands of Scotland (1861). His description includes the following about Neil Beaton of Skye.
Of this lot of Beatons, Neil seems to have been the most celebrated, and so prompt and potent were his cures, particularly of "Running-sores, grievous Headaches, Coughs, and pains in the Belly," that patients flocked to him from all places, ever so distant, for the benefit of his vegetable juices, extracted from "Plants and Roots after a Chymical way, peculiar to himself" or rather, as was quietly surmised, to the devil, from whom, for a consideration, payable at a certain date, he had been favoured with the Recipe.
It was not only the Lords of the Isles that employed the Beatons. A Patrick MacBeth was physician to Robert the Bruce, and Beaton doctors attended the Kings of Scotland from The Bruce on through the reign of James VI, James VII/II, and Charles I.
The Beatons became firmly established on Mull when MacLean of Duart awarded the farm of Pennycross to Andrew Beaton, the first Ollamhan Muileach, in 1572. Their Pennycross physic garden was probably established at the same time. Sixteen years later, Andrew was succeeded as Ollamhan Muileach by his son Malcolm, whose initials are on the cross. In 1588, Malcolm was aboard the Spanish Galleon San Juan de Sicilia (sometimes referred to as the Florencia or Florida) when it was blown up in Tobermory Bay. He was one of the few survivors of this bit of sabotage and was “blowen on the shoaare with the upper decke”.
Malcolm’s son Domhall succeeded his father as Ollamhan Muileach. The next in line was Domhall’s son John. Born in 1594, John was the fourth and last Ollamhan Muileach. When he died in 1657, John was buried on Iona, where an elaborate tombstone was erected by his grandson Donald in 1674. The Beatons were mostly gone from Pennycross when MacLean repossessed the farm in 1719.
My wife was patiently waiting in the car, so I did not linger at the cross. Even though it was a short visit, my post-Iona depression had lifted. The Beatons cured me: I’d not ingested any St John’s Wort, but I had inhaled the sweet sea air of Port Bìrlinne. As the name implies, this was once a landing place for those crossing the loch to Tiroran or arriving on the Ross to seek help from An t-Ollamhan Muileach. Birlinns no longer ply these waters, and although it was a good day for sailing, no boats were to be seen. It was also a good day for walking. A sea breeze kept the midges away and masked the sound of the occasional car passing on the highway.
* * *
These days, a walk to Crois an Ollaimh is much easier; a plank bridge crosses the stream, and a path leads to the cross. But I am glad it was a bit of a struggle when I went there on a grey day in 1992. It was my early years of island trekking, and that short but challenging walk inspired many more to come. For the history of the Beatons and their physic garden, see Hebridean Healers: The Beatons of Mull, by Christine Leach, Andrea Cameron, Miek Zwamborn, and Elizabeth Carter (Origin, 2024).
