The Deserted village of Eòrasdail

On a rainy summer morning we set off to walk to the deserted settlement of Eòrasdail on the island of Vatersay.

Vatersay is the most southerly inhabited island in the Outer Hebrides and  since 1991 it has had a causeway linking it to the larger island of Barra.

The weather was forecast to improve but as it was so wet to start with we were tempted to call into Bùth Bharraigh, the community shop in Castlebay, for a coffee.  We lingered over our delicious fairtrade coffee and homemade date and oat slice then picked up a few extras for our picnic, including some wholefoods from the self-service ‘refillery’.
By the time we left, it was much later than we’d intended!  The rain had stopped and it was warm and sunny as we drove across the causeway onto Vatersay.  

Looking down onto Vatersay’s West Beach

We passed the East and West Beaches where the north and south of the island is joined together by a stretch of machair with the sea on both sides.

From the village we headed south, following a sandy track across the machair.  It wasn’t long before the South Beach came in to view. It was completely  deserted and it was tempting to stop here for a while and have our picnic lunch but our plan was to carry on to the deserted village and have our lunch on the little beach there.

It was a day of very mixed weather and clouds rolled in soon after leaving the South Beach.  The sea and the sky turned grey and it rained for a while.

Looking south towards Pabbay and Mingulay

We made our way eastwards, climbing a couple of small rises until we had our first glimpse of the deserted village, nestled in an area of grassy machair between two rocky hillsides.

Whichever way you approach Eòrasdail from it’s a strange site, with a collection of gable end walls and some chimney stacks rising out of the machair.  Only one house with intact walls remains. On a misty day it can look quite eerie.

The only house with 4 walls still standing

The houses were built during the early decades of the 20^th century and unlike the old black houses with their thick stone walls and thatched roofs, most of the houses here were built of corrugated iron or wood, with only the gable ends made of stone.

The stone gable ends and their fireplaces are still standing but the other walls have long since disintegrated.

The Vatersay Raiders and the origins of the settlement

The settlement at Eòrasdail was originally established by fishermen from Mingulay  who had no land of their own and who’s life had become desperate and unsustainable  due to pressure for land and other difficulties such as the lack of a pier and safe landing place. For years they had been pleading with the absentee landowner for some land on Vatersay  to grow crops and graze their animals  but this was never granted. In 1906 they  moved onto Vatersay and invoked a supposed old law that stated that they they had the right to settle if they built a dwelling and lit a fire in it within one day.

They became known as the Vatersay Raiders because they had settled there illegally and had built huts and planted potatoes without permission and remained there despite interdicts served against them by the landowner, Lady Gordon Cathcart.

 They had been joined by men from Barra who were in a similar predicament but in 1908  ten of the men were summoned to court in Edinburgh because they refused to leave. They were given 2 month prison sentences but there  was a great amount of public support and sympathy towards them and in the end the government was persuaded to buy the island and divide it up into 58 crofts.

Land was allocated throughout the island, including at Eòrasdail, and the population started to rise again.

Off all the new settlements on Vatersay, Eòrasdail was the least popular because of it’s remote position. When there was a scheme to build paths and jetties for the different townships Eorasdail missed out. It was neglected again in the 1950’s when there was a road building scheme on the island.  It never got a proper path, let alone a road, to connect it to the rest of the island. The last house was built in 1936 and by the late 1960’s the village was abandoned due to its remoteness.

Just below the houses is a pebbly beach. We had our picnic here and then walked to the next bay where there was a small sandy beach.

Leaving Eòrasdail, we retraced our steps back the way we’d come so we could return to the South Beach. By now the sun had come out again and the beach looked glorious.

Heading back across the machair to Vatersay village.

Labyrinths

Touchstone Maze, Highland and Mossyard, Galloway

It was years since I’d seen a labyrinth – I think the last time was in Ely Cathedral – and then I happened to visit two in one month.
The first one was on a wooded hillside above the Victorian spa village of Strathpeffer and the second was on a tidal island on the Galloway coast.

On a rainy day with a thin mist hanging over the hills, Touchstone Maze looked as if it had been there since ancient times but it was actually constructed in 1995 as an art installation.
Although it’s called Touchstone Maze, it’s really a labyrinth as it has one path which leads through its five concentric circles until you reach the centre.

 The 81 large rocks come from quarries throughout the Highlands and Islands and showcase the wide variety of geology to be found across the north of Scotland. There’s ancient Lewisian gneiss from Stornoway,  Basalt from Mull, Sandstone from Orkney and Shetland as well as more local rocks from around the Cromarty and Beauly Firths.
Unfortunately the stones have weathered a lot since they were erected and now with weathering and lichen it’s difficult to make out what they are.

There’s an information board with a plan of the maze but with 81 stones, it’s very difficult to work out which is which! It’s a pity there isn’t a little plaque at each stone to tell you what rock type it is.

To get to the maze we did a circular walk up through Blackmuir Woods. As we gained height we would have had some great views across Strathpeffer and to the distant mountains, had it not been raining! However, on the way back we passed a house in the woods where someone had been extremely busy creating lots of sculptures of animals and people.  

From a rainy day in March to a glorious day in April and another labyrinth.  The setting couldn’t have been more different. This labyrinth is on a small tidal island at Mossyard, a few miles west of the attractive village of Gatehouse of Fleet.
It was made by the children of Mossyard in 1999 but restored during lockdown in 2020 and still looks very fresh and neat.

According to a plaque, it is a classical unicursal design and there is a similar one in the Isles of Scilly that was built by lighthouse keepers in 1729 and is still being walked to this day.

It always takes me longer than I expect to walk through a labyrinth, even a very small one like this where the centre looks so close!
It was interesting to notice, both here and at Touchstone, that some people (like me!) carefully follow the path to it’s conclusion while others wander more aimlessly among or across the stones. And there were those who just looked but didn’t walk!

Looking back to Mossyard from the island.

The rocky coastline on this stretch of the Galloway coast is interspersed with some beautiful sandy beaches and Mossyard is one of the quieter ones. Even on this first weekend of the Easter holidays we had the beach to ourselves most of the time.

 It’s just a pity there isn’t a South West coast path to join up all these beautiful places and to make access to the coast easier.

We left the island with the labyrinth and after a walk along the beach we took the path to the next beach. This was a smaller one with some impressive rocks and where we had our picnic, sitting on the sand.

We could have stayed there all day but decided to round off the day by going up the hill to the the café at Laggan. We went for their wonderful tea and cake but also for the view!

The view from Laggan with Ardwall Isle and Murray’s Isles lying at the entrance to Fleet Bay.