Shiant Islands, Eilean An Tighe

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 11 centred 420 972

For Early Christian sculptured stone found (at NG 4198 9726) within the area of this township, see NG49NW 13.

A township comprising six unroofed buildings, all annotated as Ruins, five enclosures, a grave yard [NG49NW 4] and two lengths of wall is depicted on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Ross-shire, Island of Lewis 1854, sheet 49). Seven unroofed buildings, three enclosures, the fragmentary remains of another enclosure and two lengths of wall are shown on the current edition of the OS 1:10000 map (1972).

Information from RCAHMS (SAH) 23 June 1997.

During the first two weeks of June 2000 an archaeological landscape survey and the partial excavation of a blackhouse complex was undertaken on the Shiant Islands with a team of MA students and professionals from the Czech Republic.

The three main islands, House Island (Eilean an Tighe), Rough Island (Garbh Eilean) and Mary Island (Eilean Mhuire), were subjected to a systematic ground survey, and as many as possible were recorded by measured drawings, often stone by stone, the rest being recorded by measured field sketches. Most of the sites seem to belong the modern or Early Modern period. However, not unexpectedly, a number of these sites appear to be located on or utilise earlier sites and their stonework. In total 112 sites were located and recorded, 31 on House Island, 46 on Rough Island, and 35 on Mary Island.

House Island. This is the only island with blackhouses and it is one of these that was chosen for excavation. Most of the sites can be attributed to the modern and Early Modern periods, including the house Compton Mackenzie had built in the 1920s. Of earlier interest is a mound that is probably the early Christian cemetery, and a 'longhouse' that could be medieval or even Norse. Possible prehistoric sites are limited to a heel cairn and a dubious kerb cairn.

Excavations

A blackhouse farmstead complex on House Island, composed of a longhouse of 7.5 x 3m with barns built against the N and S long walls, a separate kiln house and two other possibly associated outbuildings, were chosen for excavation.

The blackhouse. Removal of the turf revealed baked clay floors with three central hearths, a stone drain running the full length of the building at the edge of the S wall, and several stone partition foundations running across the interior. A deposit of unbaked clay at the E end of the building may have been a byre deposit or post-abandonment material from the decayed roof. A sondage revealed that there was a deep and complex sequence of deposits and floor levels, including a central stone-lined drain below the revealed level of the excavation. Excavation was terminated at this point and the site was recorded and covered.

The north barn. Removal of the turf revealed a massive limpet shell midden, 0.2m thick, occupying the E half of the building, spreading over the walls and out through the N entrance. The W end of the building was occupied with soil and wall-collapse stone rubble. Under this midden, a thin layer of soil may have represented the use of the barn for animals or storage after its construction. Under this soil and the barn walls was a further 0.35m thick limpet shell midden occupying the E area. Stonework of earlier structures with associated soils was revealed at the base of the midden, most likely representing earlier medieval or late post-medieval structures and occupation. These levels were recorded at the surface, but not investigated.

Finds. A large number of iron finds that include the rivets from a wooden boat were found in the post-abandonment soils, and it is most likely that they originate from a section of a wooden boat incorporated into the roof thatch - a not uncommon practice. A large iron spike hollowed at one end for a shaft may be connected with the kelp industry. There are also several plate fragments from an iron cauldron. Also found were a half rotary flat millstone locally made from stone found on Mary Island, a number of stone flakes from stoneworking, but not of local origin, and a number of flint strike-a-lights. There are also numerous wine bottle fragments along with fragments from at least one wine glass. A few splinters of window pane indicate a light set in the thatch. The most interesting find is a large flattened round (0.26m across and 0.13m thick) sandstone cobble found face down in soil Phase E of the sondage. On the face was pecked a cross within a circle: it is obviously of Early Christian origin and may date from around the 7th century AD. The presence of the stone gives some substance to the accounts of an early chapel and possible hermitic cell on the islands. In the lower levels of the lower midden on the north barn was a mid-16th-century copper-alloy annular brooch which may relate to the underlying pre-barn structures.

Pottery. 307 fragments of late 18th-century table and kitchen ware were recovered which can be matched with material from many similar Hebridean sites. Also, mostly in the upper levels and mostly in the north barn, were 1228 fragments of hand-made Craggan ware. The assemblage includes several fragments that could be medieval, however the mixed nature of the midden matrix detracts to a certain extent from the value of the ceramic assemblage. One fragment of white salt-glazed dinner plate is of outstanding interest. On one surface has been etched the picture of a fully rigged sailing ship. This is the skilful work of someone who may have been used to working bone in the manner of 'Skrimshaw' work.

Sponsor: A Nicolson.

P Foster 2000

The second year of excavation on House Island at site HI 15 (NG 4199 9726), a blackhouse and its associated buildings, was undertaken in July 2001. Internal levels were reduced, revealing a complex drainage system, numerous hearths, internal divisions and a possible pottery firing pit containing a large part of a hand-made pottery waster. Wall footings and layered deposits of burnt peat soil of pre-blackhouse date were also examined. The northern attached outbuilding, found last year to be partially buried within a massive limpet midden (DES 2000, 95) was investigated further, revealing stone structures and deposits below both outbuilding and blackhouse. Similar features were found in excavations beside the external W wall of the blackhouse. Excavation was started on the small outbuilding attached to the S side of the blackhouse which was found to possess a winnowing hole in the W wall opposite the E entrance.

To date the excavations have produced over 2000 sherds of hand-made pottery, mostly associated with around 450 sherds of Early Modern glazed factory products, of between the early to mid-18th century and 1865. A small amount of grass-tempered hand-made pottery was retrieved which, along with a soapstone spindle whorl and a fragment of soapstone bowl, indicates Norse occupation of the site. Several medieval rims dating to around the 14th century have been identified, and a single sherd of an Iron Age vessel with applied zig-zag decoration. Final ceramic analysis will hopefully provide a link with the early medieval to the Early Modern period through the analysis of the hand-made material.

Of note is the lithic assemblage, which amounts to over 70 struck flints and cores, almost all being found in the 18th-century deposits. Several worn strike-a-lights and a musket gun flint are present. There are no natural deposits of flint on the islands and so far no sea-borne flint pebbles have been found on the beaches. The nature of the assemblage suggests that reducing flint nodules was taking place in and around the house. There is also evidence for the working of the local basalt possibly to produce gardening implements, i.e. hoe blades. At least one of the several fragments of rotary hand millstone that have been found was manufactured locally from an outcrop of tertiary syenite.

Several other sites were investigated. Site HI 26 (NG 4209 9736), which in the original survey was thought to have been a possible boat-shaped stone setting, sitting on a skyline position on the ridge above the blackhouse, was found on excavation to be sub-rectangular; some of the large stones had toppled giving a false pre-excavation shape. Removal of the peat cover revealed a concentration of small stones at the S end, which are assumed to be the remnants of a disturbed cairn. Below them a baked-hard peat soil surface was encountered which was left intact for possible future dating.

P Foster 2001

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 4199 9726 Eilean an Tighe (House Island). Originally started in 2000 (DES 2000, 95-6), the excavation of this blackhouse complex in 2003 reached deposits and structural features up to 0.4m below the 18th/19th-century walls, and bedrock was revealed in several places. The site is composed of elements of at least the Middle and Late Iron Age, possibly Pictish, later Norse and medieval, more certainly the 15th to 16th century, and the standing buildings with their deposits of the Early Modern period. Whether all or some of these periods form a continuous thread of time is at present impossible to ascertain. Preliminary fabric analysis shows little variation in pottery across time, and most of the forms individually show few distinctive characteristics so that, at present, the recognition of cultural periods rests on just a few of the more distinctive forms.

It has become clear that the standing buildings of the blackhouse and its associated outhouses were the last in a long line of probable similar structures of post-medieval and possibly medieval date. This is to a great extent shown by the position of the main centrally located fireplaces, which remained in a sequence almost in the same place one after the other. The earliest one currently exposed was 0.3m below the blackhouse floor level. The excavations within the blackhouse living space and integral byre were not as deep as those in the smaller excavations within a barn attached to the N side of the house and a winnowing barn on the S side, or the excavations outside the W walls. In all of these excavations bedrock was reached in a greater part of their areas. In each area, earlier walls have been found, set at varying depths and running in various directions. These tend to indicate that the earlier settlement phases cover a greater area than that of the Early Modern blackhouse complex, and extend from it in all directions.

In the initial stages of the excavations it was thought that a local stone tool industry might have been in operation, at least in the Early Modern period. A stone hoe blade was found in the blackhouse deposits and an area of one of the island's basalt scree slopes was considered to be a stoneworking site. In later years, the scree site was closely examined and dismissed as a natural erosion feature. Several stone flakes were found at intervals during the excavations, but were considered to be accidental fractures - the result of stone building rather than of working (they were however retained). In 2003, the quantity of flakes recovered became too numerous to be considered all accidental. As a result, at least two stoneworking areas have been found in what may prove to be 15th-century or earlier levels. Pieces that fit together have been identified, along with several tools of basalt - a large flake cleaver and a finely worked borer. Many flints had been found at all levels, but all were unretouched flakes and chunks of strike-a-lights and the occasional gun flint. A flint borer of almost identical pattern to the basalt example was found. This stoneworking aspect is an important addition to the known and expected activities of the various periods emerging from the blackhouse site and the islands in general.

Excavation in 2003 had stopped within the interior floor space of the blackhouse at an Iron Age surface pitted and pock-marked by numerous post- and stake-holes, some still with their wood in place. In 2004, the deposit into which these holes had been cut was excavated along with the next deposit, which, apart from a single clay-lined pit, was generally featureless. There were, however, trampled spreads of orange burnt soil and several bonfire hearths. Abundant pottery sherds were scattered throughout the deposit, but they were so underfired that they had completely returned to a soft clay state.

The next two deposits were layers of thick clayey soil with abundant charcoal flecking. The bottom deposit rested on bedrock, 0.8m below the base of the blackhouse walls. Several large fragments of pottery were recovered and it has been possible to compare them with the thick-walled barrel jars and dishes found in the pre-broch deposits of Dun Vulan on South Uist, dated to the Late Bronze to Early Iron Age.

The superstructure of the blackhouse was investigated further. Evidence was gathered to show details of some of the alterations and rebuilding episodes that the house has been subject to, especially a period of re-occupation in the early 19th century.

Recording at the 19th/20th-century lobsterman's bothies is revealing more of their architectural anatomy, and the excavation of a possible root crop storage clamp produced a hammered silver coin of James dated to around 1600.

Archive to be deposited in Stornoway Museum and the NMRS.

Sponsors: Hunter Trust, Adam Nicholson.

P Foster 2004