Stone Country New Year 2014

Welcome to 2014, Arran 3rd January

January 1st arrived with mild and stormy weather interspersed by long periods of continuing rain on saturated ground. After a grim December, optimism for the New Year is on hold in terms of the weather - an unsettled and wobbly jet-stream seems to have set in motion an endless stream of southwesterly water-baths.

On the 3rd January a perfect storm of sorts blew in, combining with spring tides to flood most of the Clyde basin. Exposed shoreline areas saw roads ripped apart and covered in marine debris, Ardrossan and Arran hit hard.

Arran 3rd January storms

We were staying in Corrie in the sheltered north harbour 'Wee Zephyr' cottage (a rather ironic name), accompanied by an unconcerned otter fishing the harbour bay, but still found both north and south roads impassable for a while at Sannox and Maol Donn shores.

New Year companion

Walks were the order of the day to shake off the alcoholic lethargy of New Year, up to the waterfalls at North Glen Sannox (golden eagle territory, the Hutton 'intrusion') and the iron age forts in North Sannox.

Hutton's intrusive proof of vulcanism

Higher ground remained wind-blown and swathed in impenetrable cloud, so we left this for longer summer days.

Pete and Sarah in sodden North Glen Sannox

I managed one sunny afternoon bouldering on Arran in between the fronts, at The Mushroom in Merkland Wood, part of the National Trust's grounds. The newly-cleaned rock of 2013 was remarkably dry for such a dousing, thought the slabby top-outs are still green, not surprisingly. It will take a concerted dry spell for the finishes to come into nick Still, it's a fine venue amongst the tall, swaying Scots Pines and to be noted are some hard project lines tucked in the left cave on the south face if it dries out enough to work.

Merkland Wood

Delayed ferries were the order of the week, Calmac diverting to Gourock to avoid the windswept Ardrossan, the Clansman boat was called in and many frustrated passengers, including Lord Jack McConnell of Glencorrodale, were getting red around the chops with Calmac's backlogs. The Arran Banner was incandescent with editorial rage, and rightly so, for island businesses taking the hit of an inadequately-appointed ferry fleet around the busiest time of year, though the Scottish weather is top trumps in this affair. To add insult to injury, Calmac delayed boarding on a sodden Saturday 4th to perform a fire-drill. Cue a rolling of eyes.

Corrie end of 2013

The Lost Township of Grulin on Eigg

‘The Stony Place’ as it translates, the archaeological notes on the RCAHMS database for Eigg, state baldly the lost humanity of Grulin as early as an 1880 OS survey map: ‘…eighteen unroofed buildings, six enclosures and a field-system’. Now a scheduled monument and memorialised as a ‘depopulated settlement’, though it is not obvious if the verb is passive or aggressive, Grulin Uachdrach (Grulin Upper) is, like Hallaig on Raasay, a place of violent silence and resonance. Who lived here and why was the site abandoned? If it were not in Scotland, suspicions might fall to the climate, remoteness and apparent unsustainability of the stony place, a rabble of large rocks under the steep slopes of An Sgurr, but the carefully constructed walls tell us it was once a thriving township – the kilns, folds and blackhouse walls integrated with the giant boulders such as Clach Hosdail. In 1853 the whole of the village of Grulin, both upper and lower, housed fourteen families who were forced to l...

Timeline Walks of Scotland #Hallaig to Screapadal on Raasay

'Tha tìm, am fiadh, an coille Hallaig ...' Hallaig - the lost village of Raasay - is a powerful place. Arguably, it has become a shibboleth for the soul of Gaelic culture. To visit it, to just be there momentarily and feel the resonance of the place, is to know the fragility of place and home, of how kinship can be shattered and how loss can invade a land. Aptly, Hallaig is now a site of pilgrimage for those who value the universal lessons of history. There are t errible reasons for the loss of Hallaig. Its silent mouths of abandoned shielings, the dumb sheep meandering amongst the ruins, whisper with Sorley MacLean's poetry. The place misses the sounds of day-to-day community, and all around the woods and burns and slopes this tough but rich landscape once made this a hardy paradise under the eastern cliffs of Raasay. Facing east to the dawn and overlooking the peninsula of Applecross and the berry-dark depths of the Inner Sound, the walk to Hallaig leads quietly...

Scotland's Iconic Mountains #Broad Law

BROAD LAW The rolling hills east of the modern motorway of the M74 hold much more character and history than they appear from the west, where they are now flanked by forestries of spruce and wind-farms. In medieval times this was a Scottish royal hunting ground – the ‘Ettrick Forest’. Further east towards the Tweed valley, there are echoes of a deeper Scottish history in the border towns of Hawick, Selkirk, Galashiels, Peebles and Kelso, all on the banks of the historic River Tweed and famous for their medieval forts and abbeys. Looking west from Broad Law to the monoculture forestry and wind-farms of 21st C Scotland This range of hills, along with the northern flanks of the Cheviot hills, marks the geographical transition to the once-contested border with Northumberland, with its high pass over Carter Bar on the A68. The more useful sense of boundaries are suggested not by the roads but by the watersheds: to the north the waters drain into the River Cly...

Stone Country – Landscapes and Lifescapes

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