Beneath your feet lies an age-old tale- ending still developing

As you lie in your tent at Lochranza Campsite you sleep on alluvial soil and gravel deposited by water. The Lochranza area 6,000 years ago would have been a broad estuary with sea levels higher than they are now due to meltwater from the glaciers of the most recent Ice Age. The last ice was receding from about 15,000 years ago.

As you stand at Newton Point on the North shore of the loch you will notice the ‘raised beach’ with its line of cliffs standing inland from the sea. This phenomenon, which can be seen all round Arran, is due to the rebound of the land after being released from the weight of the glaciers.

When the ice sheets moved over Arran they gouged out U-shaped valleys such as Glen Sannox and Glen Rosa and carved knife-edge arêtes such as the A Chir ridge. The ice also carried and deposited huge boulders known as erratics- you can see one, the Clach a Chath, on the roadside between Sannox and Corrie. Whilst you’re in Corrie you’ll notice the pink rocks that form the seashore. The rock is 270 million year old red Permian sandstone. If its wave-like shapes make you think of sand dunes that’s because these rocks were formed in desert conditions in the southern hemisphere.

Travelling the two miles between Lochranza and Catacol you will observe the oldest rocks of the island. Once they were muds and silts at the bottom of the ocean but they have been twisted, folded and baked over time. Look out for veins of quartz in them. These 600 million year old Dalradian rocks are the same as those which form the Great Glen of Scotland. During this geological period Scotland and England collided in the southern hemisphere.

Arran is well-known as ‘Scotland in Miniature’- an epithet which reflects its geological history. 400 million years ago a huge fracture in the earth’s crust pushed the Highland Dalradian rocks against younger rocks creating the contrast between the northern and southern landscapes of the island.

Only 60 million years ago the Arran we know today was shaped. At that time cracks in the earth’s surface opened up under what is now the Firth of Clyde and the Atlantic Ocean formed. As north-west Britain was still attached to North America and Greenland, whilst the rest of Britain was joined to Europe, this means that Arran has actually been an island for longer than Britain. The movements in the earth’s surface triggered two caldera volcanoes in the North of Arran. The cooled magma became the granite that forms Arran’s distinctive mountain ridges and tors with their resemblance to Jenga towers. Magma erupting sideways in cracks of the earth also created rock sills such as the Drumadoon cliffs at Blackwaterfoot.

 The man who began to make sense of tumultuous geological Earth history is closely associated with Lochranza. In 1787, whilst overseeing the construction of the Forth and Clyde canal, James Hutton began to develop his idea that the Earth must have taken millions of years to form and be the result of mighty natural forces. His ideas were considered radical and heretical in a Christian society. The stretch of coast that inspired his understanding is 300 metres on from Newton Point and is known as Hutton’s Unconformity. Look for schist leaning one way and sandstone leaning the other despite originating from different times and places. Hutton realised only great upheavals of the earth’s surface could have caused rocks of all ages which had formed in different ways to lie closely aligned. Regarded as one of the fathers of the study of geology, he revealed knowledge of the Earth that’s anything but set in stone.

Information from:

The Isle of Arran Heritage Museum geology section

Arran and the Clyde Islands by Scottish Natural Heritage and the British Geological Survey

The photos show 1.Volcanic influence on Arran in granite on Cir Mhor, and 2. The rounded hills of ancient folded Highland rocks at Lochranza.

Ocean Breeze RiB Trip to Ailsa Craig

We've been gliding under gannets..........

and no- miraculously, given 50,000 gannets, no one got “deposited” on.

Ever since Nigel and I came to Arran we have been hoping to join an Ocean Breeze RiB trip to Ailsa Craig. We made it at long last on Tuesday and it proved to be an unforgettable experience.

 We set sail from Lamlash. The weather was perfect, the sea like swathes of lightest blue silk. The boat ride felt both comfortable and exhilarating at the same time. 

Ailsa Craig looks like a pyramid from the north and a currant bun from the west (see below). 

As we glided round the island, gannets criss-crossed the skies above our heads effortlessly. 

 On the west of the island there are cliffs with small shelves that are sought-after accommodation for gannets which fill the air with contented croonings and mutterings. Occasionally they rise up together spontaneously and flow down the cliff face like a waterfall. From a distance the gleaming white gannets make it look as if the island is dusted with snow.

It is possible, when the weather is kind, to land on the east of the island where there is a boulder field scattered with the remains of old industry from the days when curling stones were quarried and shaped here. Ailsa Craig is formed of a unique type of granite that has pink, blue and green tinges.

 
The pebbles felt as smooth as marble and warm as new baked loaves. 

 Russell and Elspeth, captains and crew of Ocean Breeze, are full of knowledge about all aspects of the island and their insights into the unusual physical features of gannets, and their even more unusual  family lives, are fascinating.

The whole day: the gentle sea, the serene gannets and the warm spring sunshine all left me feeling equally serene and full of wonder after my glimpse into the lives of Arran's nextdoor neighbours.

Laggantuin

Laggantuin

Ian Hislop said on television last week that he believes that the British obsession with history arises from nostalgia for a golden age that never actually existed. As you’ll know if you read my blog regularly I am fascinated by history but I have never wanted to turn the clock back. It seems to me that, in the past, if you were a man you were likely to die in bloody battle and if you were a woman you were likely to die in bloody childbirth- thank heavens for being alive in the 21^st century! For me the fascination is to do with understanding why things are as they are today whether it’s in a family, local or global sense. It’s about recording and remembering so that the past isn’t lost for ever.

History is written all over Arran’s landscapes in buildings, ruins, earthworks and place names. I recently scrambled up to the ruins of Laggantuin- an old clachan, or cluster of homes, huddled in a sheltered bowl of hillside on the coastline north of Sannox. It is said that, long ago, islanders were able to hide from Viking raids there, concealed by a lip of land. Today you can still see the ruins of their blackhouses- long one-storey buildings in which families lived at one end and animals at the other- and the characters and conversations of the past can seem almost present. The land was farmed on the runrig system with each family cultivating strips of land which were rotated annually. Labour and implements were shared. As a way of life it had successfully supported the island population for millennia, although it would have been a harsh existence by modern standards and the people possessed little. Everything changed with the agricultural improvements of the late 18^th century when the modern capitalist world extended its reach over the old communal ways and the inhabitants of Laggantuin were cleared out to make way for sheep farming.

Some of the displaced islanders went to Megantic County in Canada, some to Glasgow. A few were able to stay on Arran as fishing crofters. But sheep farming did not bring the prosperity that had been hoped for and much land that had been enclosed and managed reverted to a wild state. Look out for old enclosure walls all along the coast from Sannox to Lochranza. Ironically, today in Lochranza the hill sheep seem as if they must have always been here and the place certainly wouldn’t be the same without them and their lambs on the golf course in April and sleeping on the Boguille road at night. I wonder what traces the 21^st century will leave behind? Something that future generations will enjoy but most of us alive now will never see is being created at Sannox this year, in fact you will see its beginnings as you walk to Laggantuin. The coniferous forest is being felled and native broad-leaved tree species are being planted by the Forestry Commission. Timber will be shipped out from a new platform. Sometimes history holds up the best practices for the future.

 

 

The Barking House

The photos show Lochranza’s Barking House in last week’s lovely sunshine. It is screened by rambling gorse bushes and to be found on the other side of the road from the church. Each winter sees it tumble down a little more so, if you visit, please don’t climb on it both for the safety of yourself and the preservation of the building.

The Barking House is a grade B listed building dating from the mid 19^th century when it was situated by a cutting from the burn made for boat access. It is single storey but used to have an attic and a slate roof. Inside the walls is a cobbled ground floor with a pump shaft.

In the middle of the 19^th century Lochranza was a bustling and self-sufficient fishing village. It wasn’t easy at that time to walk out of Lochranza to other parts of the island but the surrounding sea waters were full of boats which connected Campbeltown on Kintyre and the Clyde with Arran. The Barking House was used by herring fisher families as a place to carry out the barking process- the nets would be strengthened and preserved with a mix of water and “cutch”- a tannin-rich bark extract from India (hence the barking). The nets would then be hung to dry on frames outside. Gaelic was still spoken in this part of the island at that time and apparently the Arran Gaelic of the period had a great many words for rain!

 Herring fishing was no easy life. In the S.W.R.I’s ‘History of the Villages of Arran’, Neil Clark remembers that the crofter fishermen would “sail on a Monday morning, and on the first haul their clothes got wet through, and were still wet when they came ashore on Saturday mornings”. A look at the headstones in Lochranza and Sannox churchyards reveals many lives lost at sea. At the same time it was a life that offered opportunity and many young men from Lochranza rose to become Master Mariners and Chief Engineers. The large villas near the pier weremainly built by prosperous sea captains in the early 20^th century.

Today, the Duarchan (the inner harbour behind the castle spit) may look like a timeless scene, with waders feeding at low tide and a few sailing boats bobbing on their moorings by the castle, but this tranquillity belies a past when the loch shores were busy with the comings and goings of boats. As you wander around Arran it’s easy to stumble on half-hidden history like the barking house and get jolted into past times, glimpsing the lives of people who weren’t recorded in history but who belonged here.

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The Cock of Arran Coastal Walk

Nigel and I took these photos as we walked this classic route on February 28^th. We saw two porpoises in the sea near Laggan cottage, plenty of otter droppings and two large deer skeletons.

We prefer to walk this circular route anti-clockwise, avoiding a steep ascent after Laggan cottage.

The route begins on the Narachan track above the campsite. Before you reach the cottages of Narachan a signpost directs you along a clear gently-ascending track.

At the highest point of the track, a vista of the islands of the Firth of Clyde and the Ayrshire coast opens up. Descend the track above the ruins of Cock Farm to Laggan Cottage. Before the 20th century more than a hundred people lived, fished and farmed in this area. Look out for evidence of small-scale coal mining and salt panning  industries along the shore.

 

From Laggan, head left or north-west along the coastal path which is rugged and boggy in places but sheltered when westerly winds are blowing. In about half a mile you reach a little harbour and it is here that the tracks of a giant millipede which existed around 300 million years ago be seen on the rocks.

 

Further on you reach Ossian’s Cave. It’s possible to wriggle inside and find old sailors’ carvings on the walls.

 

 

Red sandstone

 

Sheltering from a hail shower under the Cock of Arran.

Just before the white cottage and boatshed at Fairy Dell you come to An Scriodan-  a short section of easy scrambling. Faded yellow dots guide you along the best line. You can avoid the scramble altogether if you arrive at this point at low tide.

 

 At Fairy Dell you can either head uphill to join the North Newton track, or follow the coast, which is full of geological interest, back to Lochranza.

Length: 8 miles

Time:  4 hours

Verdict: Constantly-changing views, varied terrain, wildlife and marine life, history, rocks- this walk is never the same twice.

After the Rain (also the name of an Arran Aromatics fragrance!)

Sunshine arrived like a long lost friend one morning last week glistening on the snowdrops in the village and on the snowy mountain tops. It’s been a long wet and windy spell on Arran though nothing like as extreme as the stormy weather that has repeatedly hammered the south of England. At Lochranza the hills shelter us from the full impact of southerly winds, but getting on and off the island since Christmas has involved closely scrutinising weather forecasts to judge when the Caledonian Isles will be able to sail. High tides have nibbled away at the island’s edges and, in places, taken out a big mouthful, Maybe it’s time we pinched an idea from our prehistoric ancestors and started building crannogs on stilts to live in. I sometimes wonder if the ceilidh tradition of Scotland came about as a creative response to long dark wet winters. Anyway, one sunny morning and you’d think the storms had never been. There is very little pollution in the west coast air and sunshine after rain makes everywhere look freshly created in brilliant colours.

Another highlight of this time of year for us is the Lochranza Village Hall Burns Supper. A tasty traditional meal of cock-a-leekie soup, haggis, neeps and tatties, followed by Arran oatcakes, Arran cheese and Arran shortbread is punctuated with speeches and songs. We are well-fed on this island! The toasts, naturally, are made with Arran single malt. Two centuries later, it’s surprising to realise just how many well-known expressions come from the pen of Robert Burns.

The big news of the last week is that the Corrie seal was washed away in a storm and washed up at Turnberry Golf Course in Ayrshire. The wooden seal was carved by Arran sculptor Marvyn Elliott and was so lifelike that almost every passer-by stopped in their tracks to see if it was real. Hopefully, it will soon return to bask outside the Corrie Hotel once more.

A bit of sunshine has had the effect of a powerful energising drink on us. We open next Saturday so on with the outdoor painting!

Here’s Nigel polishing pods!

A blog of blogs

A blog of blogs

Happy New Year! Hope you weren’t affected too badly by the storms. It’s looking like the map of the British coastline may have to be redrawn after this winter. With winds from the south we were lucky enough to be sheltered in Lochranza but we’ve witnessed some big tides engulfing the sea field of the golf course and lapping the doorways of the village houses.

A lot of us start each new year with thoughts of what we’d like to see and do in the coming months, so for this reason I thought you might enjoy sampling a small selection of other bloggers’ thoughts about Arran life.

The following link will take you to a blog written by my daughter Emily about a RIB trip from Lochranza round the Cock of Arran. Emily also lives in a country that has beautiful mountainous landscapes (but no sea) –Switzerland:

http://www.countrybycountry.com/2014/01/isle-arran/

The annual popular Arran Mountain Festival takes place over 4 days from the 16^th-19^th May this year. It offers great value guided walks in the Arran mountains. You can read a varied collection of AMF blogs at:-

http://www.arranmountainfestival.blogspot.co.uk

The next link will take you to Arran in Focus’s stunning photographic blog:-

http://www.arraninfocus.blogspot.co.uk

And this link is guide Lucy Wallace’s blog which focuses on outdoor adventurous activities and wildlife:-

http://www.wildonarran.blogspot.co.uk

You’ll find a treat for the ears at:-

http://www.soundcloud.com/chae-cruickshank

Chae is a geologist from north-east Scotland living in Lochranza. If you were here in the autumn his “Arran in October” will evoke deer memories, I’m sure.

Hope you enjoy reading all these as much as I do.