A Walk Around Kebock Head - Lewis

Kebock Head, on the east coast of Pairc (Lewis), is one of the least visited parts of the Hebrides. I've only visited it once, on a six-mile, one-way hike from Grabhair to Leumrabhagh. Although Kebock Head is 160 miles from the island of Little Cumbrae, they may be linked in history; for its Gaelic name is A' Chabag, a name that usually refers to a toothless woman; but it may be a dedication to a St Bey. There were several female saints with names similar to Bey, and one was an early saint who called the island of Little Cumbrae her home. (See book 1, chapter 2 for the story of a visit of Little Cumbrae to find the chapel and grave of St Bey.)

I made the walk around Kebock Head in 2012 with John Randall, Chairman of the Islands Book Trust at the time. We started by driving to the end of the road at Tom an Fhuadain, a mile east of Grabhair, on the south shore of Loch Odhairn. From Tom an Fhuadain it was a rough, two miles to Kebock Head, where out in the Minch we could clearly see the Shiants. From there we walked south along the cliff-tops past Gob na Milaid to Cuiriseal. 

Beach at Mol Stiogh a' Chragain 

The settlement at Cuiriseal was famous for its boat building, and looking down from the clifftop we could see the stony beach of Mol Stiogh a' Chragain. It was there that the Smiths of Cuiriseal launched their boats. Although how they got them down the steep slope to the shore is a mystery (to me, anyway). Scattered about the moorland above the beach are several farmsteads, shielings, and large plots of once cultivated land.

Beehive type shieling at Cuiriseal

Old cultivation ridges at Cuiriseal

 House ruin at Cuiriseal

Cuiriseal Shieling

On the shore south of Cuiriseal we could see a large, detached rock, known as Stac a' Chomhraig. I think the name means something like 'Battle Stack'. I have been unable to find any history on the name, or what, if any, battle took place there.

Stac a' Chomhraig - Shiants in the distance

Stac a' Chomhraig

From Stac a' Chomhraig John and I headed due west to 'cut the corner' off the south tip of the peninsula; after passing Lochan Tobhta Ruairidh Dhuibh (the loch of the ruin of black haired Rory) we crossed Gleann Ceann Eastail.  

Looking west over the mouth of Gleann Ceann Eastail

From there it was only a few minutes walk to Leumrabhagh.

Old jetty near Leumrabhagh

Looking north to Leumrabhagh

It was an amazing walk across some historical, but rarely visited country; made all the more interesting by John Randall's extensive knowledge of the area. If you are interested in the boat builders of Cuiriseal, see this link for more information.

Neil MacGillivray of Burg & Inchkenneth

I first read about Neil MacGillivray in Alasdair Alpin Magregor's book Skye and the Inner Hebrides (1953). Neil was the island boatman for Inchkenneth when MacGregor met him. MacGregor does not say too much about Neil, but you can read a good account of his life in Timothy Neat's When I was Young (2000). The chapter about Neil begins as follows (in his own words):

Looking at a photograph of me when young and looking at me now, aged 84, you'd never think I was a man who often danced with Hitler's mistress. That was Unity Mitford. Both she and her mother were very fond of me. They lived here on Mull, on the island of Inchkenneth. I was boatman and general manager of the island - but it's a long story and it seems a very long time ago.

Photo of Neil in his 20s - unfortunately later editions of the book have a different cover 

I won't repeat the story of the Mitfords on Inchkenneth. But it is one of the strangest tales of the Hebrides. Unfortunately I only met Neil MacGillivray once. That was in 2003 when I visited him at his home, Aird of Kinloch, near the head of Loch Scridan on Mull. Over a dram of Grouse he told me some stories about his life on Inchkenneth, and showed me one of his treasured possessions, Unity Mitford's swaztika arm band. I tried to get him to talk about Alasdair Alpin MacGregor, but he did not remember much other than "he had holes in his trousers."

Neil lived on Inchkenneth for nearly 20 years, and raised his family there. Their time on Inchkenneth came to an end around 1966, shortly after the Mitford's sold the island. There was some sort of dispute with the new owners, I have no idea what it was, but it was bad enough that Neil's house on Inchkenneth was subsequently knocked down (see photo below). As I was leaving I asked Neil if I could take his photo; here is the picture, which also shows his dog Dileas (which means faithful in Gaelic).

Neil MacGillivray at his home in 2003

The day after visiting Neil I went to Inchkenneth. (See book 1 chapter 12 for the story of that visit). Neil had told me where to find the spot where his house had been. The rectangular patch of rubble in the next photo is all that's left of his house.

Site of Neil's house

I always intended on visiting Neil again, but it was not to be. Neil passed away in March of 2009. In August of that year I paid a visit to his grave in Kilfinichen burial ground.

MacGillivary Tombstone in Kilfinichen

Also buried here is his wife Janet, who passed away in 1989. When I visited the cemetery the tombstone had yet to be inscribed with the date of Neil's death. That has since been done, and the final lines on the stone are now:

Neil MacGillivray, 

who died 30th March 2009

Aged 94 years

Devoted Father and Loving Husband

Next to the Neil's grave is the grave of another MacGillivray, Christina, better known as Chirsty Burg, who passed in 1989. Chirsty was well known to many who hiked through the Burg to see the Fossil Tree, and I wish I'd been able to meet her. An excellent book on Burg, and Chirsty (that also has some information on Neil), is Tea with Chrissie, by Rosalind Jones.

Tombstone of Chirsty Burg

The Cretetree Hulk

Last time I was on Scalpay I spent four nights at Dail-na-Mara, a B&B on Scalpay's North Harbour. On the shore below the house was a massive, derelict barge that appeared to be made of cement. It was quite an eyesore, but was making itself useful as a jetty and storage area for the local fishermen.

Later I would learn that this no longer afloat boat was the Cretetree, a 180-foot-long concrete barge built by the Aberdeen Concrete Shipbuilding Company in 1919 for hauling iron ore. (The first five letters of her name come from her con-crete construction.) Cretetree's working life as a transport ended in 1953, and somehow they got her to Scalpay in 1955.  That's 60 years now, and she's so solidly built she'll probably be there for another 60 years. See this RCAHMS page for more on the Cretetree, and this Electric Scotland page for the history of the Aberdeen Concrete Shipbuilding Company.

Go Seahawks!

My local team, the Seattle Seahawks, are playing a big national game this Sunday. Here are some fans I found in the Treshnish Isles - they may have misheard the name...

Carraig Mhic a' Phi - The MacPhee Stone - Colonsay

John McPhee opens his book 'The Crofter and the Laird' with a description of how the MacDonalds hunted down Malcolm MacPhee, the last MacPhee chief of Colonsay: 'captured him, refused him mercy, saying that a man who had never showed mercy should not ask for it, tied him to a standing stone, and shot him.'

Coll Ciotach MacDomhnuill (AKA Colkitto) captured MacPhee in 1623 near Eilean nan Ron (Seal Island) at the far southwestern tip of Oronsay. He was then tied to a standing stone near Balerominmore (perhaps the big marshy farm?), a stone that would become known as Carraig Mhic a'Phi, and shot. The stone is now a pilgrimage site for all the MacPhees who visit Colonsay.

In 1623 the stone was 8-feet-tall, and stood about 30 feet northeast of its current location. Sometime after MacPhee was shot the stone fell and broke. In 1977 it was pieced together with iron straps and erected in an enclosure. (Unfortunately it was mounted upside down.) 

Cill Chatriona - Colonsay

One of the best walks on Colonsay is the trek to the beach of Traigh Ban via Balnahard farm. Traigh Ban lies at the north end of Colonsay, and is a six mile (round trip) walk from Kiloran Bay.

To get there, climb the track that ascends north below Carn an Eoin, the highest point on Colonsay. From the top of the road the summit of Colonsay is easily obtained by making a small detour to the east. A little farther on another detour is well worth the effort; a short side trip down towards the sea to visit St Columba's Well.

St Columba's Well

From the well, return to the track, and then carry on to the north. After a mile you'll pass Balnahard farm, and in another half mile you will come to the end of the track above Traigh Ban. On the hillside here lies the old church and burial ground of Cill Chatriona, (I've also seen it referred to as Cill Cairine and Cill Cabrine.)

Cill Chatriona

All that's left of the church are low walls of rubble, as the site was pillaged for stone in the 1870s. Although there is not much of the church left, there are two interesting stones here. One is a beautiful cross, its black stone polished to a glossy sheen by centuries of cattle using it as a rubbing stone.

Cross/Bovine Scratching post

Another cross once stood here; an elaborately carved stone with four holes in the head (see this RCAHMS page - the cross was given to a museum in Edinburgh in 1881). I'm not sure what the holes represent, and the only other holed-cross I know of is the odd three-holed cross of North Rona. 

Another stone of interest that is still here is Clach a'Pheanais - the penance stone. It is tilted, four feet high, aligned east to west, and one of several penance stones in the Hebrides. See the February 28, 2013 post for a photo of the Penance Stone on Canna, and see this RCAHMS page for more on Cill Chatriona.

Colonsay's Penance Stone

From Cill Chatriona it is a short walk to the beach of Traigh Ban. Unfortunately, I have no photos of the beach, as I ran out of film shortly after visiting Cill Chatriona. That visit was back in the pre-digital days, when I'd pack a bag of 20 rolls of film whenever I visited Scotland, and then try my best to ration them out over a three-week period. Occasionally, on a hike like the one to Balnahard, I'd forget to take an extra roll, and so there are several sites in the islands I've visited, but returned without any photos. 

I don't miss those film-days. Especially the week-long delay after a trip waiting for the film to be developed, only to find out, on far too many occasions, that many of the photos were either under or over exposed. That said, one of the best investments I've made is a film scanner, as many of those film-photos were poorly printed, and when I scanned them, and printed them myself, they turned out much better. An example of that is the next photo of the church on nearby Oronsay. The original print from the developer was dark and disappointing, but the scanned negative turned out much better.

Photo of Oronsay Church from a scanned 35mm negative

Shillay of the Monach Isles

I have a vivid memory of small Shillay of the Monach Isles. During a sailing trip to St Kilda in 1999, we had to make a quick escape from Kilda due to an incoming gale. And so we left Kilda in the late afternoon, and then flew with the wind to the Monachs. It was getting dark when we arrived, and I watched as the skipper, Donald Wilke, used two marker cairns on a small skerry near Shillay to navigate to a safe anchorage between Shillay and Ceann Iar. It was my first time sailing in the twilight, and I was amazed by Donald's skilled seamanship, as he kept the cairns aligned against the darkening horizon while we sailed through a skerry-studded sea, After dropping anchor he could finally relax, and made us big steaming cups of hot chocolate. It was a sail, and a night, to remember, and we stayed on deck until the tall tower of the lighthouse on Shillay was no longer visible in the darkness to the west.

I promised myself then that someday I'd return to see the lighthouse on Shillay, and touch the navigation cairns that had guided us to safety. It took 14 years, but I did make good on that promise. Below are a few photos from a visit to Shillay made on Hjalmar Bjorge in 2013. The tide was low, and so I was able to wade from Shillay over to the skerry to touch the navigation cairns I'd seen so long ago (last photo).

Approaching Shillay (2013) - the nav-cairns can be seen to the left

The landing place on Shillay - ship's dog Seven (aka Fatty) leading the way

Looking back to the lighthouse from the skerry of the cairns

The lighthouse and the temporary light that operated until 2008

One of the navigation cairns - Hjalmar Bjorge in the background