This book is a final draft text in preparation for publication. Comments are welcome.
The research for this book was carried out by Julia Apland Hitz, who carried it out while she was a member of the Erraid community, most especially in her last year, 1999, when she was supported to work on the project full time by the community, the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and Historic Scotland. Julia produced a first draft before she left to go back to the United States, and it is on this draft that the present book is based.
I lived on Erraid from 1990 - 1992, and maintained a close link with the island while working close by on the Ross of Mull for the next 5 years, during which time I also did local history research. I have rewritten, and reorganised Julia's draft and in some places added extra material. Some of that comes from my close friendship with Christine Gibson (now sadly deceased), whom I greatly admire. After extensive discussions with Julia (now back in the United States) and current Erraid and Findhorn Foundation members, it was agreed that the final responsibility for the text should be mine.
Many people helped in Julia's research and all deserve thanks. A few names only are mentioned here.
She had access to records from the National Archives of Scotland, The National Library of Scotland, The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, and the Northern Lighthouse Board, as well as Iona Abbey and Mull Museum Libraries. The Writer's Museum in Edinburgh, the Free Library of Philadelphia, and the Ross of Mull Historical Centre were also used. Many photos of the island were supplied by Yiannis Alevroyianni. Before I came on the scene, Linda Mathieson of the Ross of Mull Historical Centre made an early review of the manuscript.
She carried out taped interviews with several Ross of Mull residents, who all deserve thanks. Special mention should be given to three : Hugh Cameron (sadly recently deceased), Calum Campbell of Fidden Farm and Attie McKechnie (now also deceased), as well as Hugh's wife, Bella. All were gaelic speakers; all have maintained a close interest in Erraid over many years. Everyone on the Ross deeply misses Hugh and Attie.
The local knowledge of Harley Thomson and Terry Hegarty contributed to the research, as did that of many current and former residents of Erraid. All deserve thanks.
Without Julia's extensive work this book could not exist. Her love of the island, and of Findhorn gave her the determination to gather all the material and do the main work of fitting the jigsaw together. In comparison, mine has been a minor role, but, as I have reworked the project, errors and inadequacies must lay at my door.
The beauty and strength of the island itself was the principal inspiration and sustenance for both of us.
Carol Riddell, Feb. 2005
Erraid Song C. Liz Coley, 1991
As you enter Fionnphort, on the Ross of Mull, there is only one other road leaving the village. It winds south, over the hill, till it comes to the old farm of Fidden, from which a track leads off to the right along the field to a large wood stack, standing out on the low shore. Opposite, across about 200m. of water lies the island of Erraid, at about 300 hectares Mull's third largest after Iona and Ulva.
A row of solid stone houses with walled gardens lies above the shore on the other side, a small, brave woodland defies the westerly storms and an old quarry scars the hillside to the right.
Once the island community has sent its boat to fetch you — or, the tide being low, you take a detour in your rubber boots up the Erraid sound and cross the sands to arrive on foot — you have a number of options. You can climb the moorland ridges with their black face sheep, leading over to the Hebridean sea to the south, a rugged coastline with crumbling, craggy cliffs indented with narrow bays and clefts. The most famous, 'Balfour' Bay, has a shining, shell sand beach; a place of summer picnics, and, for the brave, swimming. On clear days Jura and Islay also swim hazily in the ocean, and even the coast of Northern Ireland is visible occasionally.
As you scramble over to the west, to see Iona laid out before you, small islets and channels open up and a seal colony allows you close to view their complex manoeuvres in the crystal clear water among the seaweed on still days.
On the eastern side, Erraid at times belies its island status. A narrow channel only, dry and sandy till an hour or so before high tide, divides the island from Mull. Rugged hills above old settlements across the channel, Knockvologan and Tireragan, take over the view and a very rough track winds down to the sands from the clachan of Knockvologan itself.
A careful walk around the island shows that every area with reasonable soil was extensively cultivated in the past. The north east quarter, where the land slopes quite gently towards Mull, shows old 'lazybeds' ( 'Lazybeds'. The popular, if totally inaccurate, name for the method of cultivation developed over the centuries on the west coast of the Highlands.) — a raised bed from a metre to 1 ½ m wide, dug to follow a slope so that surplus water drains away between the beds — perfect for a wet climate.over its whole area, divided into two main crofts by the remains of a north-south running stone wall. The wider lazybeds are probably the oldest, and were used to grow bear, an old form of barley. Later, in the mid eighteenth century, potatoes took over almost completely.
Leyden's Tour of the Highlands, 1800, 1903 (Blackwood Reprint.))
On the hills forming the south and west of the island, the hardy black highland cattle, which provided most of the income for Mull up to the end of the eighteenth century, grazed. These hills, and the shores, were once walled off from the cultivated areas of the island so the cattle could not get into the cropped areas. The remains of the walls can still be seen today.
It would be hard not to be impressed by the beauty and variety of Erraid; but it is much more than just a lovely small island. As the setting of part of one of Scotland's most famous romantic novels; as the scene of a major industrial enterprise — the building of one of the great lighthouses that save ships from destruction on the remote westerly Hebridean reefs — and as the home of a spiritual community which has celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary, the island has a fascinating story to tell, a story often overshadowed by that of its more famous sister, Iona. This small book tells that story.
"...Ellan Eray, ane iyle of halffe myle lange and halffe myle braid, guid main land, inhabit and manurit, fruitful of corne and pastorage, with abundance of fisching." — Sir Donald Monro, Dean of the Church (1549, from a tour in 1542)
The granite rock that forms the basis of the island of Erraid cooled and emerged about 420 million years ago. But only after the last ice age, about 13,000 years ago did the island itself take its present form.
The first actual evidence of human occupation of Erraid is in the early Christian era, but various peoples occupied the Hebrides well before that and, very likely, lived on Erraid as well. For over 4000 years from 10,000 BC the climate was much milder and the folk who built the famous Callanish stones on Lewis occupied the area, perhaps coming from Spain via Ireland. At that time there was tree cover, more developed versions of the existing trees, oak, birch, alder, hazel and goat willow that, though grazed down by sheep, exist even now as remnants in tiny sheltered corners of the island. Before the sheep, the vegetation was more varied; in addition fish and shellfish were abundant. What happened to those early people is a mystery, but later, it got much cooler and wetter. Perhaps they left for warmer climes.
From about 2500 BC, the bronze age 'Beaker' folk arrived. This group came from the Rhine area and crossed Scotland to get to the west coast. It is sure that Erraid itself was at least visited, for they left remains on the Ross of Mull, in the form of standing stones.
The first archaeological evidence of the island's habitation, dating from about 300 AD, is in the form of a 'dun' or small extended family fort, Dun Aoidhean (Pronounced roughly as 'oyan'. Spelling of Gaelic names on maps is very inaccurate generally.):
Argyll, An Inventory of Monuments, Vol. 3. (Picture?)
These iron age inhabitants might have had a either a Pictish or Celtic background. At this time new immigrants were spreading from Ireland and slowly becoming the dominant culture of the western Highlands of Scotland. Although evidence is thin, it is likely that Erraid was occupied by at least one extended family group, probably two, almost continuously since that time.
The Irish Celts soon gained dominance over the whole Argyllshire region and set up the monarchy of Dalriada; later Columba arrived at the nearby isle of Iona from Ireland to spread Christianity and found his famous monastery. During his lifetime, Dalriada became an independent kingdom. MacLean's 1925 history of the island of Mull claims that Erraid's still existing seal colony provided skins and meat for the monastery.
Pictish monarchs still contested Celtic ascendency and the Ross of Mull was sacked in 732 by the Pictish king Angus MacFergus. At the end of the century the Vikings started raiding and for the next 300 years the area was contested. There is a local tale that nuns sheltered from Vikings in a small cave on the north east of Erraid, but no evidence has been discovered. By 1098, the island — and the rest of the Hebrides — were formally ceded to the Vikings. In another 40 years, however, Somerled, a warrior king who had both celtic and Norse inheritance, subdued the area of Mull and Morvern and claimed the title 'Rí Innse Gall' (King of the Hebrides).
Up until relatively recent times, roads were sparse and poor on the mainland, so that the sea passages through the Hebrides were a major means of communication. Vegetation, without the devastation of the large flocks of sheep introduced in the later 18th century, was richer and more varied — Mull used to be called the 'green isle'. Fish really were abundant — even 100 years ago, tales are told of herring shoals so prolific that they could be scooped by hand out of the sea at times. In the 1920s, Ruth Dickson, a lighthouse keeper's daughter writes,
"With some trepidation I agreed to go fishing with my father and another keeper.... We had quite a few cod in the bottom of the boot when we began to catch herring. They came in by the dozens.... Before long, feet buried in slithering silver, we turned back..."
Ruth Dickson. Strangers to the Land, Unpublished autobiography, p.71-2
In these early times, seaweed was used to improve the soils to grow a primitive barley, 'bear'. It was brought up from the shore in huge quantities by the women, carrying it on their backs in woven baskets. Small black Highland cattle, 'Kyloe' cattle were prized and a significant export from the area. They grazed on the rougher hill above the cultivated areas and enormous effort was put in on Erraid to keep them from eating the crops. The whole cropped area, nearly a quarter of the island, was walled off with dry stone walls. These extended round the sea coast as well, since cattle could also cross from the Mull mainland at low tide.
As the 'Lordship of the Isles' developed after Somerled's time, the Norse predations ceased. The MacLean clan, supporters of the ruling MacDonalds, slowly assumed dominance over most of Mull, which, in the early middle ages, had its most significant influence as part of an area virtually independent from southern Scotland.
The lowland Scottish monarchs were never content with that. They found allies in the Campbell clan of Argyll, who began contesting MacLean influence. By the late 1490s the 'Lordship of the Isles' had withered away and the Campbells became dominant, though, on Mull, the MacLeans long resisted. The Ross of Mull and maybe Erraid too, was sacked bloodily several times as Campbells sought to assert real control. They finally succeeded only in the late sixteenth century — after another bloody sack of the Ross of Mull — leaving bitter memories among surviving MacLeans and their allies. The all important cattle were taken away or slaughtered, crops ruined, leaving the south of the island destitute; a setback from which it never fully recovered.
So Erraid itself became a Campbell island. Though there is no record of it being settled by Campbells, it became dominated by Campbell fues (land grants), included in the farmstead of Fidden nearby to Erraid. The island is mentioned in early land records (sasines) as having formally passed to Campbell control in 1635. In the mid 18th century, Dugall Cameron had a small sandstone panel inscribed with his crest. It still exists above the entrance door of Fidden farm.
The Campbell Dukes of Argyll made several attempts to increase profitability from their estates, as their lifestyle among the aristocratic elite of Scotland became more expensive. Potatoes were introduced and quickly became staple food; organised fishing was attempted. Feudal land management practices were modified. But none of these attempts succeeded. (See 'Tireragan - A Township on the Ross of Mull', Carol Riddell, Mull, 1996, for more detail.) A few small cottage ruins prove that poor peasants and labourers — 'cottars' — lived on Erraid. Traditionally such cottages, dating from the later eighteenth century, were low, dry stone walled affairs, with rough thatched roofs and a central fire whose peat smoke escaped through the roof, irritating the chickens which probably roosted there; partially fumigating the bugs, and holding off the damp which always threatened to take over. In heavy weather, raindrops seeped through the thatch ('snighe'). Perhaps this influenced the sons, who were willing enough recruits to the famous Highland regiments which underpinned the British army. The cottars were illiterate, the language Scottish Gaelic. In spite of the poverty, a lively culture of song, story and dance thrived and people thought nothing of walking many miles across the hills to a 'ceilidh'. Even in the late 1930s, Attie McKechnie and Calum Campbell, at that time living in the Ardalanish area about 5 miles away, remember, as young men, walking over the moors to dances on Erraid.
Later in the 18th century, the Highland landlords were discovering new potential methods of making their estates pay. Kelp, a form of seaweed abundant round the coasts, when burned, yielded alkaline ash, a very profitable export. And lowland sheep could graze the land, providing a source of income from meat and wool, much in demand from the developing industrial revolution. In 1805, the 7th Duke of Argyll stated,
'My lands in Morvern and Mull have more sheep upon them than any district in Scotland or perhaps in England of equal extent.'
These new revenue sources had partly opposite, partly complementary effects on the local population. Kelp working was labour intensive, requiring much hard work near the coasts. Sheep needed few people, and grazed best on the 'inbye' land, areas of pasture and crops near the houses, carefully covered in seaweed each year to keep them fertile. It was therefore 'economically rational' to dispossess the inland crofters from their settlements or clachans, replacing them by sheep, and drive them to the coasts where they could eke out some sort of living by working kelp.
Erraid was an excellent source of kelp - and still is; maybe the lower croft ruins belonged once to kelp workers. By 1841, the census recorded only one family living on the island, Ann McPhail, her 10 year old son, 3 daughters and a hired labourer — at what has come to be known as the 'Croft'.
Unfortunately, as the Napoleonic wars ended, cheap alternative sources of alkali flooded in from Spain, and the kelp 'boom' was over. Sheep were well established; as far as landlords were concerned, the local population was largely redundant. Expensive urban lifestyles bankrupted some landowners, whose estates were brought up by southerners with no sense at all of obligation to the highland crofters; other grandees felt few obligations anyway. A new policy developed, leading to mass evictions all over the Highlands of Scotland — the notorious Highland Clearances. (There are many accounts of the Highland Clearances. James Hunter's 'The Making of the Crofting Community' is one of the most powerful.) The Campbell Dukes of Argyll were slightly later in enforcing this policy than others, but by 1841, the 7th Duke was clear,
'No doubt my object is to get the farms divided into large proportions and have proper tenants in them and the rest of the tenants to be provided for by emigration or induced to go to the low country.'
As potato blight attacked the Highlands in 1846, thousands were forced off the Ross of Mull; most of those who survived ended up in Canada. But the 1861 census still shows one family occupying the croft on Erraid, the Mathesons, brought in by the Duke of Argyll's agent, the 'Factor', to instruct the local indigent in fishing. He had 3 male and one female 'fishermen/servants' as well as his wife and children. Their descendants still live in Bunessan at the time of writing.
It was in the 1860s that Erraid's history began to diverge from that of the areas on Mull surrounding it, for both literary and industrial reasons....
In 1866, the Northern Lighthouse board proposed the construction of a major lighthouse on a grim rock outcrop marked on modern maps as Dubh Artach ('artach' is possibly a corruption of 'artan', a pebble, thus 'Black Pebble') about 17m. west south west of Erraid. This rock, often alternatively spelt at the time as 'Dhu Heartach' (definitely incorrect as no Gaelic words begin with 'h' and 'dh' is not pronounced 'd'), was outside another group of dangerous rocks, the Torran Rocks, south and west of Erraid. The Torran rocks had a terrible reputation for wrecking ships. Indeed it was reputed that in earlier times wreckers from the Ross of Mull, perhaps even from Erraid itself, deliberately lit fires on these rocks in order to attract shipping, which, when blown up on the rocks, was despoiled. There is an old Erraid ghost story referring to these rocks (See Appendix 1). As shipping increased in the nineteenth century, the rocks became a nightmare — 24 vessels were lost between 1865 and 1866, with at least 21 people drowned as a result. (see the proposition for a lighthouse in appendix 2)
When their proposal was accepted, the Northern Lighthouse Board chose the firm of David and Thomas Stevenson, well known at the time as lighthouse construction engineers. The story of how they transformed the obscure island of Erraid into a major construction site and built its street of dressed stone houses as well as Dubh Artach lighthouse is told in the next chapter.
With Thomas Stevenson came his son, Robert Louis Stevenson, who grew up to be the famous Scottish romantic writer, visited his father, Thomas, twice on Erraid. He incorporated his experiences in the novella, 'The Merry Men' (1881) and the more famous novel 'Kidnapped' (1886). He also wrote lucidly about the construction period The first visit was for a few hours in 1865 when he was a boy of fourteen. He was on a tour with his family aboard the Steamer Pharos, before the lighthouse project was even approved. The second time was in 1870, when the young man spent two weeks observing engineering techniques on the island as part of his university training. These two brief encounters impressed him deeply. On the second, he found the scene completely transformed. In Memoirs and Portraits and The New Lighthouse on Dun Heartach Rock (ed. Swearingen), Robert Louis Stevenson gives eyewitness accounts of what Erraid was like during the construction period.
"I saw Earraid next from the stern thwart of an Iona lugger, Sam Bough and I sitting there cheek by jowl, with our feet upon our baggage, in a beautiful, clear, northern summer eve. And behold! there was now a pier of stone, there were rows of sheds, railways, travelling-cranes, a street of cottages, an iron house for the resident engineer, wooden bothies for the men, a stage where the courses of the tower were put together experimentally, and behind the settlement a great gash in the hillside where granite was quarried. In the bay, the steamer lay at her moorings. All day long there hung about the place the music of chinking tools; and even in the dead of night, the watchman carried his lantern to and fro in the dark settlement and could light the pipe of any midnight muser. It was, above all, strange to see Earraid on the Sunday, when the sound of the tools ceased and there fell a crystal quiet. All about the green compound men would be sauntering in their Sunday's best, walking with those lax joints of the reposing toiler, thoughtfully smoking, talking small, as if in honour of the stillness, or hearkening to the wailing of the gulls. ..." ( Memoirs p. 88)
"On Isle Earraid, there was a good quarry of granite, two rows of sheds, two travelling cranes, railways to carry the stones, a stage on which, course after course, the lighthouse was put experimentally together and then taken down again to be sent piecemeal out to the rock, a pier for the lighters, and a look out place furnished with a powerful telescope by which it could be observed whether the weather was clear [and] how high the sea was running on Dhu Heartach and so judge whether it were worthwhile to steam out on the chance of landing." ( New Lighthouse, p. 14)
"In a word, there was a stirring village of some [fifty] souls, on this island which, four years before, had been tenanted by one fisherman's family and a herd of sheep. The life of this little community was highly characteristic. On Sundays only, the continual clink of tools from the quarry and work yard came to an end, perfect quiet then reigned throughout the settlement, and you saw workmen leisurely smoking their pipes about the green enclosure, and they and their wives wearing their Sunday clothes (from association of ideas, I fancy) just as if they were going to take their accustomed seats in the crowded church at home. As for the services at Earraid, they were held in one of the wooden bothies, the audience perched about the double tier of box beds or gathered round the table. Mr. Brebner read a sermon and the eloquent prayer which was written specially for the Scottish Lighthouse service, and a voluntary band and preceptor led the psalms. Occasionally, a regular minister came to the station, and then worship was held in the joiner's shop." (New Lighthouse, p. 14)
Robert Louis Stevenson didn't spend all his time studying the ongoing construction work around him. He was still drawn to the natural aspects of Erraid — not actually noticing the clear signs of very long term habitation of the island:
"But it was in Earraid itself that I delighted chiefly. The lighthouse settlement scarce encroached beyond its fences; over the top of the first brae the ground was all virgin, the world all shut out, the face of things unchanged by any of man's doings. Here was no living presence, save for the limpets on the rocks, for some old, grey, rain-beaten ram that I might rouse out of a ferny den betwixt two boulders, or for the haunting and the piping of the gulls. It was older than man; it was found so by incoming Celts, and seafaring Norsemen, and Columba's priests. The earthy savour of the bog-plants, the rude disorder of the boulders, the inimitable seaside brightness of the air, the brine and the iodine, the lap of the billows among the weedy reefs, the sudden springing up of a great run of dashing surf along the sea-front of the isle, all that I saw and felt my predecessors must have seen and felt with scarce a difference. I steeped myself in open air and in past ages." (p. 91)
Stevenson spent his visit to the island in the company of another young man, and was affected by the magic of the landscape He reflects in 1887,
"I met my old companion but the other day; I cannot tell of course what he was thinking; but, upon my part, I was wondering to see us both so much at home, and so composed and sedentary in the world; and how much we had gained, and how much we had lost, to attain to that composure; and which had been upon the whole our best estate: when we sat there prating sensibly like men of some experience, or when we shared our timorous and hopeful counsels in a western islet." (p. 93)
"Aros itself – Aros Jay, I have heard the natives call it, and they say it means The House of God – Aros itself was not properly a piece of the Ross, nor was it quite an islet. It formed the south-west corner of the land, fitted close to it, and was in one place only separated from the coast by a little gut of the sea, not forty feet across the narrowest.
When the tide was full, this was clear and still, like a pool on a land river; only there was a difference in the weeds and fishes, and the water itself was green instead of brown; but when the tide went out, in the bottom of the ebb, there was a day or two in every month when you could pass dry shod from Aros to the mainland. There was some good pasture, where my uncle fed the sheep he lived on; perhaps the feed was better because the ground rose higher on the islet than the main level of the Ross, but this I am not skilled enough to settle. The house was a good one for that country, two stories high. It looked westward over a bay, with a pier hard by for a boat, and from the door you could watch the vapours blowing on Ben Kyaw.
"On all this part of the coast, and especially near Aros, these great granite rocks that I have spoken of go down together in troops into the sea, like cattle on a summer's day. There they stand, for all the world like their neighbours ashore; only the salt water sobbing between them instead of the quiet earth, and clots of sea-pink blooming on their sides instead of heather; and the great sea conger to wreathe about the base of them instead of the poisonous viper of the land. On calm days you can go wandering between them in a boat for hours, echoes following you about the labyrinth; but when the sea is up, Heaven help the man that hears that cauldron boiling."
Stevenson's descriptions of Erraid in his more famous novel, Kidnapped, published in 1886 are much less flattering, as the story of the novel demands. But because he does not disguise the name of the island, it was more important in making the island known to a wider world. The hero, David Balfour, is shipwrecked on the Torran Rocks and washed ashore on what is now often called Balfour Bay.
David Balfour spends a few pitiful and miserable days on Erraid, since he doesn't realise that when the tide drops down he can walk off the island.
Balfour finally gets off Erraid. The island does not figure in the remainder of the novel.
In 1887, he comments on this writing in his book of essays 'Memories and Portraits'. "There is another isle in my collection, the memory of which besieges me. I put a whole family there, in one of my tales; and later on, threw upon its shores, and condemned to several days of rain and shellfish on its tumbled boulders, the hero of another. The ink is not yet faded; the sound of the sentences is still in my mind's ear; and I am under a spell to write of that island again." (p. 86)
"I first saw it, or first remembered seeing it, framed in the round bull's-eye of a cabin port, the sea lying smooth along its shores like the waters of a lake, the colourless clear light of the early morning making plain its heathery and rocky hummocks. There stood upon it, in these days, a single rude house of uncemented stones, approached by a pier of wreckwood. (8 This 'rude house' was what we know as the Croft House, and the barelegged daughters were those of fisherman Neil Matheson, Mary and Christina.). It must have been very early, for it was then summer, and in summer, in that latitude, day scarcely withdraws; but even at that hour the house was making a sweet smoke of peats which came to me over the bay, and the barelegged daughters of the cotter were wading by the pier." (p. 87)
So Erraid was eulogised by one of Scotland's most famous writers. The nature scenes that he describes are part of the 'magic' of Erraid. The construction scenes are part of perhaps the most major event in the island's history, which deserves a chapter to itself.
Because of the danger from the Torran Rocks and Dubh Artach rock mentioned in the previous chapter, in the mid 1800's there began to be some interest in building a lighthouse signal in the area, and the Commissioners of the Northern Lighthouse Board established a subcommittee to look into the matter.
As a result of the committee's recommendations, the Commissioners decided to build a lighthouse on Dubh Artach. The British Board of Trade, which had the final word on approving any such project or individual expenditure, since it would ultimately pay the costs, also approved. The Engineers to the Lighthouse Board at this time were, and had been for two generations, the Stevenson Family.
If a lighthouse was to be built, the Engineers also had to determine the location of a shore station and construction site. They carried out evaluations of the area.
As they surveyed the possibilities, they considered Iona, but found it unsuitable. Erraid Island held more promise. In a their report to the NLB, they explained that no suitable site was available on the west side of Erraid. On the north side, however, was a reasonably sheltered anchorage and site for housing with gardens. Above it a hill provided a clear view of a proposed lighthouse on Dubh Artach rock, where a light signalling station could be erected. They drew up a detailed plan...
The Secretary of the Northern Lighthouse Board began negotiations with the agents of The Duke of Argyll, Erraid's owner. These were by no means easy, although the Board could invoke compulsory powers. Every proposal met with objections; even the plan of the site was regarded as inadequate. There was contest over a suitable rent ('feu duty'). The Stevensons began to be concerned at the delays. The Duke wished the stone to be purchased from his existing quarries at Fionnphort. Further problems were raised about building an access road from Fidden Farm to the shore by Erraid. In this case, the tenant farmer - John Campbell (It is not clear if this is the notorious 'Factor Mor', John Campbell, who lived at Ardfenaig but also owned Fidden. He may have installed another John Campbell there as his own tenant..), simply didn't do the agreed work. Slowly the pressure of curt letters from the board resolved the issues in their favour. An annual feu duty of £20 for the use of Erraid was agreed; a track was finally constructed, though not till quite late in the project.
The local quarry was used after all. It yielded grey granite which becomes oxidised after exposure to air, rather than the pink so common on Mull.
"This characteristic renders the stone unfit for the market, because, though it takes on a fair polish, it soon oxidises and from the action of rain on the soft mica it becomes speckled." (McCormick, p. 177)
Several other commercial quarries were readily accessible on Mull, and plenty of stone outcrops could be used for local construction rather than ferry materials over from Erraid, so the quarry was used only for the construction of the lighthouses, pier, shore station buildings and walls, and was then abandoned.
In May of 1867, David Stevenson visited Erraid to begin offloading materials and equipment onto Dubh Artach, to set out buoys marking dangers for the passage between the Rock and Erraid, and to stake out the position and extent of the ground to be utilised for the shore station. Most of the workmen involved in the construction of the Lighthouse and the Shore Station were to be accommodated in temporary wooden bunkhouse structures; others, especially those with families would lodge on Mull. During the summer months, some would live on the Rock itself, housed in a small, tower-like building raised above the rock on metal girders.
The day to day activities of construction were overseen by Alexander (or Alan) Brebner, an engineer employed by the Stevensons (who themselves occasionally visited the works but mainly directed them from Edinburgh). Despite this distance, David and Thomas Stevenson were able to grasp the detail of every phase of the effort. Their regular correspondence with Mr. Brebner indicates that they planned, controlled and approved the minutia of both administrative and practical issues. But they valued him highly and defended him so fiercely to the Lighthouse board later on, when he was accused of minor malpractice, that the Board dropped all charges (see Appendix 2).
"Favoured by the smooth egg-shaped outline of the rock, which is about [130] feet broad, [240] feet long and 35 feet above high water at its summit, the swell breaks at one end, runs cumulating round either side, and meets and breaks again at the opposite end, so that the whole rock is girdled with broken water. There is no sheltered bight. If there be anything to aggravate the swell, and it is wonderful what a little thing it takes to excite these giant-waters, landing becomes impossible on the Dhu Heartach." (Swearingen, p. 6)
Storms washed the sea over Dubh Artach with such force that, as they grew more familiar with the site, the Stevensons revised their design specifications. They lifted the level of the light to 145 ft (44.62m.) above sea level, with a base diameter of 36 ft. (11.1 m.), top, 16 ft. (4.92m.), and an entrance over 32 ft. (9.85m.) above the rock. For the lighthouse keepers there were 6 rooms (Stevenson's Report to the NLB, November 1874).
The first summer's work, in 1867, was mostly preparatory in nature. A powerful steamer, the 'Dhu Heartach' was built especially for the project and was used to supply the lighthouse afterwards. Other lighters were used as well during the short summer season when work at the rock was possible. A base for the proposed temporary accommodation on the rock for the construction workers was erected - and that was all. During the winter months, work continued on the cottages, and stone blocks were prepared and numbered for the lighthouse assembly next year. As Robert Louis Stevenson describes it:
"All the winter of 1867-68, a band of resident workmen were carrying on the shore station with its bothies, cottages, quarry and the work yard where every stone has to be cut, dressed, fitted and numbered before being sent out to the rock to be finally built into the tower; and on the fourteenth of April, the Dhu Heartach steamer came back to her moorings in Earraid Sound." (Swearingen, p. 11)
In the spring of 1868, the work on the Rock began again, but in the whole season landings were possible only on a total of 38 days.
"It was not intended that the barrack should be inhabited till its stability had been fully tested by a winter's storms. But in order to hasten its completion and the excavation for the tower Mr. Alan Brebner and 13 workmen were left on the Barrack on 20th August in the expectation that the fine weather then prevailing would admit of the work being carried on continually without interruptions occasioned by going ashore to Earraid. A sudden gale however sprung up and they could not be communicated with till the 26th during greater part of which time the sea broke so heavily over the rock as to prevent all work, and during the height of the storm the spray rose far above the barrack, and the sea struck very heavily on the flooring of the lower apartments which is 35 feet above the rock and 56 feet above high water mark."
The third summer season, 1869, was a little better; landings were possible on 60 days. Men were able to stay full time on the Rock, sleeping in the temporary accommodation, so work often continued for 16 or 17 hours a day. This summer, storms washed some of the landing crane equipment away, as well as 14 blocks from the partially completed tower:
"It is a remarkable fact that the level above high water – 35 feet – from which these blocks were removed by a summer gale is the same as that of the glass panes in the lantern of the Winstanleys first lighthouse on Eddystone, which nevertheless stood successfully through a whole winter's storms."
In the summer of 1870 they were able to land stones and supplies at Dubh Artach on 62 days, often with two trips between Erraid and the Rock per day. The lighthouse tower was completed.
For the entire 4 year process, during the 91 days of the when the rock was accessible by boat, 3115 tons of stone were landed on the rock, 1840 tons being for the base of the tower alone.
Such a project, involving very rough and demanding work, was very dangerous. But although there is no indication that serious injury was common, some serious accidents did occur. Robert Louis Stevenson movingly recounts one incident in 'The New Lighthouse on Dhu Heartach Rock'.
"One forenoon, the Dhu Heartach was back from the rock by an unusually early hour and without the lighters. A great stir penetrated through all the settlement as this news spread from house to workshop; and the feeling deepened to something like awe when a boat was seen pulling ashore with a figure on a stretcher in the stern-sheets. A poor fellow had fallen off the ladder of the tower and was being brought back to Earraid, half insensible, for medical aid. It was reported that there was a strange Doctor resident on the Ross; and while a man was despatched on horseback to Bunessan for the ordinary physician, I and two friends were pulled across the ferry to go in search of this nearer assistance. As we landed on the Mull side, we saw a cluster of women and children, waiting for us on one of the granite knolls by the roadside. These were the wives and families of some of the men for whom there was no room as yet in Earraid and who were consequently lodged across the bay. It would have been a strange study for any student of human nature to see how quietly the group waited for us, how one separated from the rest and came forward as a delegate on our nearer approach to hear the news, and how, when she had learned the name of the injured man and that he was none of their people, there came first a natural 'Thank God' before she went on to ask us how he was and whether there was a good hope of his recovery." (pp. 14-15)
Two more seasons were needed to completely finish the project. In 1872, the lantern was fitted and, on November 1st, it was first lit. The next year the temporary accommodation was taken down in preparation for establishing the Keepers' families on Erraid and equipment and left over materials from Erraid itself sold or transferred to other projects, including 2 large travelling cranes, four other derrick cranes, and numbers of rails.
"We have sent a tracing on which we have marked in red the houses to be removed – you had better proceed with their removal at over using the stones to complete the fence walls and laying aside the timbers to be sold." (Stevenson Bound Letters, July 1872)
The ongoing problem of communication between the Light and the NLB office had also to be considered. The nearest Post Office was in Bunessan, so letters and telegrams were slow to be delivered. The Commissioners encouraged the postal service to establish a sub post office at Fionnphort, which would serve the whole area as well as Erraid. The postal service agreed, but would only offer a salary of £3 per year for the position of clerk. It suggested that the NLB put up an additional amount to make the position more enticing. But the Board arranged with the Iona ferryman, Allan MacLean, to take the job as well as his own. The Post Office was opened in Fionnphort for the first time in 1872. (NLB Minute Books, October 1872)
The Erraid ferryman needed to be settled in as well. Mr. Brebner explained to the Board that Mr. Benham had been staying in a house on the Fidden side, which was inconvenient to the needs of the island. He asked if the ferryman could be accommodated in one of the houses on the street. Instead, the Board decided that the former stable be converted (it was noted that the roof of this building was made of felt). The ferryman could have it rent free as long as he kept the building maintained. Mr. Brebner was instructed to include the modification of the stable in the final works. (Secretary's Correspondence, January 1873) It is not sure which structure was referred to. It may have been the building now called the community house, or, more likely, the cow byre.
Another Erraid resident, Neil Matheson, the Duke of Argyll's fishing instructor, applied for a position on the Dhu Heartach, to continue to supply the lighthouse after the building was completed, but was not accepted by the Lighthouse Board (see Appendix 2.)
The original estimate for the project of £56,968 was exceeded by almost £20,000. The 4 years' projected time span became 6 years.
The stone for the houses was from smaller granite pieces quarried during the lighthouse construction activities. They were carefully dressed into small blocks and fitted together meticulously to form the walls of the houses. Each pair of houses took a year to complete. The progress report from the Engineers to the Board in 1871 stated,
"The masonry of the tower (of the lighthouse) was completed and also the whole of the dwelling houses at Earraid for Light keepers and seamen during this season. These houses afford accommodation for nine families."
The meticulous attention to detail is exemplified by the decorative, wrought iron railings which still line the garden walls along the street (some have been restored). Although the original drawings produced by the Stevensons have not survived, they produced similar even more decorative drawings for work on the Flannan Isles lighthouse station.
The cottages at Erraid were, as they are nowadays, comfortable. All had a similar construction. A front hall led to a large living room with a bed alcove, containing a stove for cooking/heating, with two small rooms at the back (scullery, washroom/ storage). On the other side of the hall were two bedrooms, one leading off the other, with small fireplaces. Between living room and minor bedrooms was a main bedroom. All the rooms had heavy wooden shutters inside.
There was no running water in the houses. Runoff water was collected in slate tanks outside the back door, but drinking water had to be carried up from the spring by hand. An outbuilding, which became known as "Mother's Pride" was used for laundry. Water had also to be carried by hand for that purpose. There was another similar outbuilding of indeterminate purpose at that time (at time of writing it houses the candle studio). At the bottom of the large front gardens across the 'street' were privies ('shunkies'), with an open fuel store for a year's worth of coal by them. Stone built drains carried sewage to an cesspool below the gardens, just above the shore line.
The whole project ran over budget, but no shortcuts were taken with respect to the quality of materials and fittings for the permanent buildings. The final cost of the Shore Station itself was £10,301.89.
"A lot of the workforce at Erraid was from the Aberdeen area on the east coast of Scotland. They were famous for working with granite. Some were probably from Edinburgh, as the Stevensons were there, some were from around here. There would have been a lot of Gaelic speakers, as hammermen. When they were boring the stone to blast it out, there were two hammermen for each person who was guiding the drill (called the jumper). They would have to turn the bit a quarter turn each time so the hole wasn't triangularly shaped."
An accountant with the D & T Stevenson firm Mr. Murdoch was sent to Erraid to review the accounts after the death of the local 'storekeeper', who died in 1870, possibly of a a stroke. He wrote to the Commissioners on the situation:
Workmen were able to purchase alcohol and tobacco among these provisions. Wages were paid in cash, which had to be brought in each month for that purpose, much of it in silver, a heavy quantity to be moved. Between £700 and £1000 pounds per month were needed during high activity periods,. In the beginning, one man would take a cart to Craignure and the boat to Oban to bring back the monthly payroll, nearly a week's journey. Later it was arranged for the steamer Dunvegan Castle to carry the cash up from Glasgow, stopping at Erraid Pier on its way to the northern isles. (NLB Minute Book, Nov. 1868)
Health care was important to life on the project. The NLB negotiated a contract with a doctor in Bunessan for medical attention on the island. It was a difficult task for the doctor, as it took a good part of a day over rough roads for the return trip to Erraid rowing boat trip apart, and much longer if he was needed on the Rock. Throughout, the local doctors asked the NLB for better remuneration. The Board bargained hard, however, under pressure to stay within budget.
Dr. Black of Bunessan complained that when his contract was settled, there were 80 men working on the island, but that, by 1869, the number had doubled. To complicate matters, a number of the workmen lived on Mull. The doctor was obliged to attend to them and their families with no payment whatsoever.
In December of 1872 an epidemic of scarlet fever swept the Ross of Mull, hitting Erraid hard. The Board is informed,
"Capt. McGregor's youngest child died yesterday and another of his family lies in a precarious state, and little hope entertained of his recovery." (Minute Books, Dec. 1872)
Medical demands were also increased by an influx of rodents. Mr. Campbell from Fidden objected to the importation of dogs, who might harry sheep. The Board acquiesced, hoping that the problem would be solved when the workers left. After that time, the permanent residents could keep cats. (see Appendix 2)
Sadly, no-one thought to take down the workers' thoughts and observations at the time. It is fitting to close with a tribute by Robert Louis Stevenson to the men who completed this impressive feat:
"Of all the thousands of tourists who have gone, during these last six years, to be vaguely sentimental over the graves of Columba and his satellite monks, how many ever gave a thought to the great work that was being carried forward not sixteen miles away from them? It seems here somehow, as it does in so many other things at the present day, as if heroism was a cheaper commodity than it ever was before and, let us say, a commoner as well. System and habit have got into everything. All the forethought, decision, prudence and valour that such great sea lights demand from those concerned in their construction, are nowadays a mere matter of business. There were men at Dhu Heartach, who had taken their part, years before, in the sister lighthouse of Skerryvore; but they have drawn their salaries every week, the heroism was bought and sold, and people who can feel very much excited over the struggles of Gilliat in Hugo's wild romance, see nothing more than a balanced account in the lives of those brave men who have given us the Dhu Heartach or the Wolf (Rock Lighthouse). It is perhaps a wise and just result, for every one is supposed to do his duty and these have done no more; and still, it would be ungenerous if a great and dangerous work like this were brought successfully to an end and no praise should be given to such men as Mr Brebner the resident Superintendent, Mr MacGregor the captain of the steamer, Mr Goodwillie the master-builder on the rock and Mr Irvine the landing-master." (Swearingen, pp 19-20.)