Talisker House - A look Back

The last post on a virtual visit to the Viking Canal made me wish I was really on Skye. So I dug through my journals looking for entries about the island. As I did I came a cross a Skye walk I'd never written about - one made twenty years ago. 

It was June of 2000. After a long stay on Rum (book 1, chapter 28), my wife were on Skye, driving the single track to Talisker House. I'd booked a room there for one night to break up our journey to North Uist. Oh how I regret my thinking back then, in just booking for one night - one night in a historic place that deserved a week at least.

It was a beautiful, cloudless day, as we made the 50-mile drive across Skye from Armadale. We found Talisker House at the end of a long single-track road, where we were graciously greeted by Jon and Ros Wathen (I believe the Talisker Estate was owned by their family). We were fortunate in our timing. Talisker would not operate as a B&B for very long, as in a few years the Walthens would leave to run a guest house in Australia.

Talisker House was built in 1717 for the Macleods of Talisker, and hosted Boswell and Johnson for two nights in 1773. Dr Johnson did not think much of the place, reporting that it is The place beyond all that I have seen from which the gay and the jovial seem utterly excluded.

Talisker is an interesting name. So much so that the Carbost distillery, which lies four miles away on the shore of Loch Harport, took it as a name. I have come across two translations of Talisker. The first is 'house at the rock', the second is 'echo-rock' (the Gaelic for 'echo' is MacTalla, the son of the hall). The aforementioned rock is Preshal Mor, which you can see in the previous photo looming 1000 feet above the house.

We had booked for dinner at the house. That's something I don't usually like to do as it limits your options for a long walk. But there were no other places for a meal in the area. With only two hours to explore I decided to walk some of the Talisker Horseshoe and see if there was an echo at Echo Rock. 

The Talisker Horsehoe is a five mile circuit from the house up to Preshal More (1050 ft.), then around the upper reaches of Glen Sleadale to Preshal Beg (1130 ft), and then back down to Talisker. With only two hours I'd just have time to reach the head of the glen.

From Talisker House Preshal More looks like the Devil's Tower, a massive stack of rock. But as I climbed to the southeast it became a giant wall of stone that reminded me of the Sgurr of Eigg. As I approached I could hear the echos of baa'ing sheep.

It had been a long day of travel, and it was very hot. I was so tired after climbing 500 feet in the heat that I decided not to climb to the top. After finding a place to sit and catch my breath I started to yell, listening as the echos washed down into the glen.

I carried on south along the route of the horseshoe. An hour into the walk I came to the turnaround point at the head of Glen Sleadale. It was a beautiful spot, and in the late afternoon haze one of Macleod's Maidens could be seen rising from the sea off Idrigill Point.

If I hadn't had to be back by 7:30 I'd have kept on going. But the wife would not be very happy if I missed dinner, so I started back. The walk down the glen, along the banks of the Sleadale Burn, was stunning. And as I rounded a knoll the policies of Talisker House came into view, an oasis of pines surrounded by fields of abandoned lazybeds.

I was back just in time for dinner. I don't remember what was on the menu, but I do remember that my wife and I felt a little under-dressed in our jeans, as everyone else was smartly attired. But we travel light, and jeans are all we bring on vacation. After the 'Full Scottish' the next morning we set off to Uig to catch the ferry to Lochmaddy.  

I regret that all-too-short stay, and so a return to Talisker is high on the to-do list. But the closest I'll get this year is by enjoying a smoky dram with a splash of highland spring water. 

Slainte!

The Viking Canal - A Virtual Visit

I'm still stuck in lockdown here in Seattle. Day 70 and counting. Virtual visits to the Hebrides are all that's possible. So I thought I'd go on one, and return to a place on Skye I've only visited once: Loch na-Airde and the Viking canal. Twenty years have passed since I was there. During those decades much has been discovered about the loch and its canal. The site is now thought to have been a medieval boatyard.

In 1995, six years before my visit, an underwater survey found several boat timbers lying in the silty bottom of the loch, but they were left in place. Further survey work in 2000, when the water level was unusually low, led to the discovery of an oak boat timber. Radiocarbon dated to 1100 AD, it is believed to come from a four-oared clinker built ship, twenty-feet long. A ship that size was too large for just using in the loch, it had been a sea-going vessel. 

In 2008, seven years after my visit, a larger piece of timber was found, most likely from a ship thirty-feet in length. Initially thought to be 12th century, it was radiocarbon dated to the 19th or early 20th century. Proof that the canal was in use for over 800 years.

Additional underwater surveys found remnants of a quay where the canal enters the loch. It spanned the entrance, with a gap in the middle. The gap allowed ships to pass, and may also have been part of the water management scheme for the loch. Loch na Airde is shallow, much of it only six-feet deep. Its primary source of water are the small streams flowing off the slopes of Carn Mòr, and from a small loch above the township of Dùnan, where the MacAskill of Rudha Dùnain lived. 

The mean elevation of the loch is only a few feet above sea level, so seawater can only get in at extremely high tides—tides in excess of +5 feet—so they had to control the water level to keep boats afloat at all levels of tide. Aside from the quay at the end of the canal, another mechanism to control the level appears to have been an adjustable dam built at its halfway point. A dam that could be temporarily removed to allow ships to pass at high tide. Note that this is speculation on my part; but the structure, whatever it was, can still be seen today. Blocking the central part of the canal, it is so tumbled that it looks like a pile of ruble.

It would of taken a lot of work to manage the water level of the loch, so it may have been done only a few times a year when bringing boats in for repair, launching newly built ones, and when over-wintering ships in the loch.

The time-line for this complex site would start with the establishment of the promontory fort 2500 years ago, a place of refuge for the settlements north of the headland. The fort had a navy of sorts, based in the two stone-lined boat noosts below the fort, where ships could be pulled out of the water.

Fifteen-hundred years later the Norse took over. They constructed the 200-foot long canal to the loch, creating a boatyard and safe-haven on Loch na Airde for over-wintering ships. Another 600 years pass, and the MacAskills establish the township of Dunan; building two dozen homes and cultivating crops in the surrounding terrain. The township was cleared in 1873, and the area has been deserted ever since.

Taken as a whole, Rudha an Dùnain is one of the premiere historic sites in the Hebrides. Fortunately it is difficult to visit, and so is protected from damage caused by thoughtless visitors. In a well deserved, and long overdue recognition, it was scheduled as a historic monument in 2017.

Oh how I wish I new all the above when I walked there in 2001, and so a return to Rudha an Dùnain is demanded; not just a virtual one, not just a day-hike, but to camp for the night.

I’ll come on a sunny, midge free day (I’m dreaming here, might as well be optimistic).

I’ll come on a day of high spring tides.

I’ll pitch the tent next to the fort overlooking the canal. 

I’ll watch as the flood tide surges through the canal.

I’ll imagine I was there 800 years ago, watching as galleys venture in and out of the loch.

Maybe, someday . . .   Now I just want a vaccine.

Point of Sleat

After writing the last post on IKEA lighthouses, I remembered another memorable minor light I'd visited long ago; one that has also been replaced by an IKEA tower. This particular light stood at one of the most iconic locations in the Hebrides, the Point of Sleat, the southernmost tip of the isle of Skye. Anyone who has taken the Calmac ferry to Canna or Rum has come within a mile of the point. Although I've sailed past it a dozen times, I've only visited it once.

That visit was way back in 1997. My wife and I were staying at the Eilean Iarmain Hotel, and on our last morning I decided to get up early and walk to the point. (I had a lot more energy back then. These days I like to sleep in). A ten-mile drive took me to the end of the road, where there was a small parking area. From there it was an enjoyable two-mile hike out to the light; passing, along the way, a half-dozen abandoned crofts. 

The light I visited dated to 1934. Unlike IKEA towers it had an external ladder that allowed you to climb to the balcony. As described in my journal entry for that day, from the top of the tower you could see the internal workings of the light:

...looking into the lantern room you could see a small mantle, like on a gas lantern, set to a low burn. Every 10 seconds (not sure, didn't think to measure it) a stream of more gas pulsed into the mantle to make it glow brighter for a second. 

My estimate was a bit off, as the Pilot's Guide for Skye says the beacon flashes every three seconds. The light I saw in 1997 was replaced by this IKEA tower in 2003.

It was probably photos like the next one, of a suspicious-looking vagrant messing around the light, that led them to put up towers that can not be climbed.

Dunscaith Revisited

I had only visited Dunscaith Castle once, way back in 1997 (see chapter 1 of book 2). So when I was on Skye in July I decided that the time had come to see it again. From our hotel in Isleornsay I drove the A851 south. After paying a visit to haunted Loch nan Dùbhrachan (see the Sept 2, 2017 post), I took the minor road west to Ord.

Just before reaching the sea I parked the car and walked over to take some photos of Ord House. My wife and I stayed there in 1992 when it was operated as a hotel (see this link). The house, which dates to 1750, gained some fame when Alexander Smith wrote about staying there in his book A Summer in Skye (1865).

I count myself lucky to have stayed there, because it was not a hotel for much longer. It must have been hard to make a go of it in this out of the way place. I remember sitting in the lounge, reading, when the owner came in and shut off all but one light. 

Another two miles down the road I parked near a sign marking the start of the path to Dunscaith Castle.

It is an easy quarter-mile walk out the headland. After clambering around a few boulders you come to the remnant of an old track that ends at a small gully. The gully separates the castle rock from the mainland, and was once spanned by the infamous bridge of the cliff.

Dunscaith was the Dun Sgathaich of the Red Branch sagas, where Cuchulainn came to learn the art of arms. It was not easy for him to get here, as the castle was surrounded by seven ramparts and a palisade topped with spiked heads. Even if he made it through all that, there was one last obstacle, a bridge that crossed a pit of snakes and beaked toads. This was the Bridge of the Cliff; said to grow narrower, shorter, steeper, and slipperier with every step. After three failed attempts to cross, Cuchulainn performed the salmon-leap, jumping high in the air and sliding down the far side of the bridge.

Crossing what's left of the current bridge is not as death defying. But there is still a gap to cross, as the drawbridge is missing. The two arched walls that supported it remain, and there are narrow ledges on the inside of each wall where the drawbridge rested.

To get across I carefully placed my toes on a ledge and side-stepped across. When I crossed the bridge in 1997 there were several hungry sheep on the rocks below. One fatal miss-step and I’d have fallen into their waiting jaws. But there were no sheep, hungry snakes, or beaked toads around when I was there in July, and it was an easy crossing. Once over the bridge a short stairway leads to the top of the rock. 

It was here that Cuchulainn learned the various feats of combat from Queen Scathach: the spear-feat, the rope-feat, the apple-feat, the thunder-feat, and the cat-feat. Some of these feats involved the throwing of special spears grasped between the toes. It must have been quite a sight seeing warriors jumping in the air and flinging heavy spears with their feet; something that would put the fear of God in any opponent.

Aside from its walls there is not much left of the castle itself, just a space of about 5000 square feet of low foundations overgrown with grass and nettles. 

It may be possible that a fort on a small island called Eilean Ruairidh, 700 feet offshore from Dunscaith, was the actual stronghold of Queen Scathach. If so, the bridge of the cliff was a very long one. You can see the island in the following photos taken from underneath the bridge. (For more on Eilean Ruairidh see this CANMORE Page.)

The castle you see today probably dates to the 13th century, when the Macleods appointed the Mackaskill's of Rubha Dunain as keepers. Two hundred years later Dunscaith was the main seat of the MacDonalds of Skye. They moved north to more spacious quarters at Duntulm Castle in the 17th century, but would return to Sleat (Armadale) in 1800.

A visit to Dunscaith is an easy day out to see an historic site. What with all the health and safety stuff these days it is unusual that there are no 'Keep Out' signs, like those you'll find at the ruins of Duntulm. But do be careful when crossing the bridge, one miss-step and you may end up like Ragnar; a snack for some hungry snakes.

The Water-Horse of Dùbhrachan

When I was on Skye in July (sounds like the start of a bad poem) I paid a visit to Loch nan Dùbhrachan. I went there because of a book I found on Iona 25 years ago: Alasdair Alpin MacGregor's Somewhere in Scotland, first published in 1935.

Chapter 7 of the book is entitled The Ancient Highway to Skye. In it, MacGregor relates an interview with a man named John MacRae who, at the time, lived in Glenelg. The subject of the interview was the each-uisge, the water-horse, of Loch nan Dùbhrachan.

MacRae lived as a child on Isle Ornsay in 1870, and was present during an attempt to capture the water-horse. In the words of John MacRae (quoting directly from Somewhere in Scotland):

"A cattleman and his wife came to (Loch nan Dubhrachan) to cut rushes to thatch. They sat down to take a rest, and the man observed a small, black object on the shore of the loch. So he went down. As he neared, the beast swam out with his head below water, putting little waves ashore."

"You may be sure the people was terrified. They were certain it was the each-uisge. Lord MacDonald said he would dredge the loch - trawl it like, for the monster. Well, he got all his gillies and gamekeepers out one day with a big net. And they started walking along opposite sides of the loch like, dragging the net after them."

"I saw the thing myself. I was a boy going to school. We got a holiday that day. Well, we were all watching carefully when the net got stuck, and all the gillies got the fear of death on them. So they just dropped the net, and ran back from the loch. A whilie after they commenced again; and after a whilie the net came away on a sudden. Well, then, they pulled it in like, afraid all the time what would be in the net. There was nothing in the net at the finish but some mud and two small pikes."

Haunted lochs almost always seem to be in remote, hard to get to spots. But that's not the case for Loch nan Dùbhrachan (the name means black-braes loch). It lies right next to the A851, three miles north of the Gaelic college Sabhal Mor Ostaig. The loch is impossible to miss. It has its own sign, which is unusual, and its own parking area.

A short, grassy walk of 30 seconds leads down to the lochside. It is a large loch, about 500 feet wide. (Lord MacDonald must have had a very large net.) It was quiet, the only sounds that of the wind fanning the grass and driving low ripples across the loch. I was about to leave when I was startled by a loud plop. Was the monster on the attack?  No. Just a fish jumping to catch a bug. Yea! one less midge to worry about. A few minutes later I returned to the car to head to my next destination: the castle of Dunscaith, where Cuchulain learned to throw spears with his toes. 

Next time you're on Skye take a few minutes to visit the the Loch of the Black Braes. Take a packed lunch with you, walk down to the shore, have a seat, and while you're eating think what fun it must have been for all those school children 147 years ago. Off for the day, watching all the gillies dredge the loch, and then see them run scared when the net snags. But while you're eating, be sure to keep an eye on the loch. You don't want to be lunch, yourself. 

The Fortress of Rudha an Dùnain

The eight-mile round trip walk to the promontory fort of Rudha an Dùnain on Skye is one of the shorter classic Hebridean walks. It has, as its destination, an historic set of structures: a passage grave, a chambered cairn, a Viking Canal, the fortress of Rudha an Dùnain, and the abandoned village of Dunan.

I was first drawn to this remote corner of Skye by Arthur Gardner’s photo of Rudha an Dùnain (plate 110, The Peaks, Lochs and Coasts of the Western Highlands, 1930). The photo shows a small headland of rock jutting into the sea, with a defensive wall separating a small bit of ground at its very tip. It also shows an odd pinnacle, perhaps an intact bit of wall higher than the rest, that looks like the crow’s nest of a ship, and gives the fort the appearance of a pirate stronghold. Rudha an Dùnain means the headland of the little fort, and it is a small-scale version of the great promontory forts of the Irish west. It was at Rudha an Dùnain that MacLeod of Skye based his coastal watchmen; ready to light a warning beacon should Clanranald, sailing from the isles to the south and west, be on the warpath. 

Rudha an Dùnain

It is a pleasant walk along the coast from Glen Brittle. And just before you reach the north side of Loch na Airde you'll come to a jumbled chambered cairn and a neolithic passage grave. The central chamber of the grave is intact and open to the sky. I hopped down into it and crawled along its passages. But I did not stay long, as the air was thick with hungry midges.

Central Chamber

On the south side of the loch you'll come to an amazing site, the Viking canal, that links the loch to the sea. It is not known for sure who built it, but the MacAskills, MacLeod’s coastal watchmen, are said to have used it to bring their sea-going ships to safe harbour in the loch. For more photos of the canal see the August 30, 2014 post. 

The Viking Canal

Just beyond the canal is the fortress of Rudha an Dùnain. Its defensive promontory wall is built of massive squared stones, the upper ones cloaked in moss. The eighty-foot long wall, some twelve feet thick, once completely sealed off the tip of the headland. The area of land it defended was small, and forty feet beyond the wall is the cliff edge, fifty feet above the sea. If the defenders ever failed to keep out invaders, there was nowhere to run.

At the first sign of an approaching enemy the MacAskills would light a warning beacon, and from the fort a series of lookouts along the coast could quickly relay information that trouble was afoot. 

From the headland it is a short walk north to the ruins of Dunan; a small abandoned township where one large building stands out: Rudha Dùnain House. It is fifty feet long, and twenty wide. One end has a normal gable, but the other end is rounded, and appears to have been a very large chimney. The last MacAskill of Rudha Dunain lived here in the 1860s.

Rudha an Dùnain House

From Dunan it's an hour's walk back to Glen Brittle; completing one of the best hikes in the islands. If you ever make it to Rudha an Dùnain, stand on its 3000 year-old walls and think on this verse from Alasdair Alpin Macgregor's Watchmen of the Sea:

Would that thou to Rudh’ an Dunain

Mightest go at ebbing light,

To review the phantom galleys,

As they steal upon the night;

Listen there with muffled breathing

For the sweep of oars below,

Dear was vengeance to Clan Ranald,

In the nights of long ago.

Thirsty Hugh

Five kilometres south of Uig (Skye) you'll find Caisteal Uisdein (Hugh's Castle). The Hugh it was named for was Uisdein MacGhilleasbug Chleirich, the factor of North Uist in the late 1500s. Income from the factorship must have been good, for around the same time Hugh had this castle built for him on Skye. The stone for the castle was quarried on the nearby Ascribs, a cluster of four little islands (and assorted reefs) that I hope to visit someday.

Caisteal Uisdein

Caisteal Uisdein has been called the castle with no windows or doors; the only access said to be through a high entrance reached by a ladder. But there is a small slit-window at ground level; a tight squeeze, but I managed to get inside.

The only way into the castle

Looking back to the narrow entrance from inside the castle

Hugh was an ambitious man, and hatched a plan to kill his cousin, Donald Gorm Mor, the chief of the Macdonalds of Sleat and North Uist. But his plan was foiled when a letter describing the plot ended up in the hands of Donald Gorm Mor. And so Hugh skulked off to North Uist, where he hid out in Dun an Sticir (the skulker's fort); a fort that is still there today, consisting of two linked islands in Loch an Sticir. This photo of Dun an Sticir was taken from the slopes of Beinn Mhor (the island off in the fog is Pabbay).

Dun an Sticir - Skulker's Fort - North Uist

Hugh was eventually taken prisoner. His fate was to die in the dungeon of Duntulm Castle, sixteen kilometres north of Caisteal Uisdein. The story of his death is well known: given only salty meat to eat, he was denied any water and died of thirst. Otta Swire, in Skye, the Island and its Legends, says that 'his screams and curses are said to echo through the castle today'.

On a visit to Duntulm a few years ago I searched for the dungeon where Hugh ended his days, but the building was such a mess of fallen stone that I could not tell what was what. I'd like to say I heard thirsty Hugh's curses echoing across the centuries, but I didn't.

Duntulm castle

Ring of Bright Water & Maxwell's Ghost

Although I did not know it at the time, my first exposure to Gaelic, the Hebrides, and the west of Scotland happened when I was 12 years old. That was in 1969, when my mother took me to a theater in downtown Seattle to see the movie Ring of Bright Water. Some scenes were filmed at Ellenabeich (Seil) and in Oban. And there are views to several islands in the Firth of Lorne, including Scarba and the Garvellachs. The story of the otter, and the scenery, made quite an impression on me.

It wasn't until 1991 that I actually read the book, which is very different from the movie, and much more interesting. After reading Ring of Bright Water (published in 1960), I went on to read the other two parts of the Bright Water trilogy: The Rocks Remain (1963), and Raven Seek Thy Brother (1969).

After reading the trilogy I came across a book about Maxwell called The White Island (1972), by John Lister-Kaye, who was involved in Maxwell's plans to construct a zoo on Eilean Bhan; the White Island that now lies under the Skye bridge. It has a sad ending as the author describes how, after Maxwell died, the zoo-in-progress had to be dismantled, and that they were worried about finding a home for Teko, the last of the famous otters. But they did not need to find him a home, because Teko died of a heart attack not too long after Gavin Maxwell died of Cancer.

Another excellent book that describes much of the back story of Maxwell's life at Sandaig and Eilean Bhan is Richard Frere's Maxwell's Ghost (1976).

It is easy to visit Eilean Bhan these days, and tours are offered by the Bright Water Visitors Centre. On the island you'll find a memorial stone that marks where Teko is buried. Teko and Gavin Maxwell both died in 1969, the year I first saw Ring of Bright Water.

Stone on Eilean Bhan - TEKO 1959 - 69

Dunscaith Castle

Bits of the ruin you see today of Dunscaith Castle date to the 13th century, but due to its strategic location on the west coast of Skye's Sleat Peninsula, there has been a fort of one kind or the other here for at least a thousand years.

Dunscaith is an intriguing ruin to explore, especially if, like the warrior Cuchulainn, you get onto the rock by crossing the wily Bridge of the Cliff. But not to worry, these days you have an easier time crossing the bridge than Cuchulainn did, as it involves tip-toeing across the ledge of a drawbridge the MacDonald's built a few hundred years later. Here's a view of the bridge from the landward side of the castle-rock.

In my opinion a visit to Dunscaith is one of the most rewarding short hikes in the islands (it's only a quarter-mile from the road). Aside from the history, the views west to Strathaird, and south to the Small Isles, make a visit there worthwhile. For a description of a visit to Dunscaith, see book Book 2, chapter 1. If tip-toeing across the bridge supports sounds boring, you can always try a Cuchulainn salmon-leap. See this RCAHMS page for more on Dunscaith.