Shiant Islands, Garbh Eilean

SHIANT ISLES (off Lewis) Three small islands cast into the Minch between Lewis and Skye, the Shiants have a history of almost continuous occupation, from the Neolithic period until 1901. From the 12 th century, their ownership reflected the territorial ambitions and rivalries of the Macleods and the Mackenzies; more recently, the islands have had a succession of literary lairds: Compton Mackenzie from 1925; Nigel Nicolson from 1937; and more recently his son, Adam Nicolson. The trio of wing-shaped isles, with their spectacular basalt columns teeming with seabirds and grassy clifftops strewn with flowers, were immortalised in Adam Nicolson's elegiac book Sea Room (2001). In the 18th century, five families lived on EILEAN MHUIRE, which is cliff-girt with a high green plateau. GARBH EILEAN, on which an Iron Age house has been identified, lies to the west, connected by a spit to EILEAN AN TIGHE, where the tin-roofed shepherd's cottage built in the 1870s survives intact. Ruins of other structures on Eilean an Tighe include Norse dwellings and the former tacksman's house on the hillside - an old blackhouse, reoccupied c.1720 when a barn was built on its north side. Archaeologists have unearthed fragments of porcelain and craggan ware, wine glasses and winebottles here; the house was occupied properly until the late 18th century. This island was known as Eilean na Cille until the mid-19th century, and several visitors, including William Daniell in 1815, mentioned the ruins of a religious cell or hermitage where the graveyard lies at the north end. However, by the 1850s virtually all traces of this chapel had disappeared.

Taken from "Western Seaboard: An Illustrated Architectural Guide", by Mary Miers, 2008. Published by the Rutland Press http://www.rias.org.uk

NG49NW 2 412 983

W J Watson (1926) mentions an 'Annait' in the Shiant Islands ('the Holy Isles'), presumably in the vicinity of Airidhean na h'Annaid - NG 412 983.

On the W side of Eilean na Kily - Island of the Cell - which is either Eilean an Tighe or Eilean Garbh, MacCulloch (J MacCulloch 1824) describes '...a ruinous square enclosure, the remains of a house...The smallness of this building makes it probable that it was really the cell of some ascetic monk or hermit.'

W J Watson 1926; J MacCulloch 1824

At Airidhean na h'Annaid, a sheltered shelf on the otherwise exposed and rugged Eilean Garbh, there is a sheepfank which overlies earler buildings including, probably, the 'cell' seen by MacCulloch.

The earlier structures have been severely robbed during the construction to the sheepfank. The most clearly defined feature is a D-shaped enclosure (?cashel) 28.0m NNW-SSE by 23.0m transversely within a boulder-faced rubble wall, 1.3m in thickness, which is situated on a steep slope and overlooked by a rock face immediately to the W. In the SW corner of the enclosure the ruins of a rectangular building can be traced, sunk slightly below ground level, and measuring internally 3.8m, N-S by 3.0m transverely, with a crude recess in the NE corner (probably MacCulloch's 'cell', possibly a shieling hut). Contiguous with and NE of this building are the foundations of a semi-circular, turf-covered wall, 1.1m in thickness, apparently the remains of a circular structure, about 3.5m in internal diameter. Without excavation it is impossible to be certain of the nature of this site, but it is probably of early Christian monastic or eremitic origin.

Visited by OS (N K B) 7 July 1969

During late August 2003 the SHIP project continued work at the early medieval, possibly monastic, site (RI 41) on Rough Island and the multi-period settlement site on House Island (HI 15). Activities included an environmental assessment, the investigation of the range of potting temper materials available on the islands, and the production of a set of fired clay tiles as a comparative collection. A small number of new sites were found, underlining the fact that field survey work should never be considered complete. A plane table survey was carried out of the excavation sites and their environs, and also the main settlement area on House Island.

NG 4117 9829 Garbh Eilean (Rough Island). In 2003, previously exposed deposits (DES 2001, 101-2) were removed, some samples being wet-sieved on site. Their removal revealed further earlier structural and depositional phases. Additional plain Pictish pottery of the 6th-9th century was recovered, which suggests that although more than one phase of occupation is represented, only one cultural period is present. The identification of the site as an early monastic enclave still awaits some definitive proof, although there is some circumstantial evidence, including its annat place name, for its ecclesiastical credentials.

The 2004 excavations continued with the excavation of two more occupation phases. Pottery with applied wavy line decoration recovered from both phases showed that the site had passed from the Late Iron Age to the early medieval. Structural features included part of the Iron Age roundhouse wall upon which the early medieval roundhouse is built. The Iron Age central hearths appeared exactly under those of the medieval house, indicating that both roundhouses are of a similar diameter although the medieval house is less well designed and its wall circuit is more ovoid. Close to the Iron Age hearth was a square setting of vertically embedded stones containing a large stone slab: a worktop most likely used for food preparation. This discovery of a second Iron Age site on the islands suggests that the late prehistoric population may have been much higher than at first thought. The most notable finds are several Iron Age glass beads.

There was no further evidence to support the site's interpretation as a monastic enclave. We can now be fairly certain that the early medieval roundhouse was still standing and its stone corbelled roof was intact when it was used as a shieling hut sometime in the late 17th to late 18th century. Only after this time does the mass of dumped roofing lintels and walling stone appear in the record within the house. This is most likely the point at which the nearby sheep fank and field walls were constructed, using the roundhouses as a convenient stone quarry, perhaps sometime in the 19th century.

Archive to be deposited in Stornoway Museum and the NMRS.

Sponsors: Hunter Trust, Adam Nicholson.

P Foster 2004

This chapel site was included in a research project to identify the chapel sites of Lewis and surrounding islands. The Lewis Coastal Chapel-sites survey recorded 37 such sites. A topographic EDM survey was carried out as part of the survey.

R Barrowman 2005