Mid-Argyll, cradle of Scotland Islay Day-by-day programme Am I fit enough? Accommodation Clothing and equipment Dates and prices Booking

Mid-Argyll - Cradle of Scotland

These early Scots (from the Roman tribal name Scotti) weren't all that secure in their Scottish colony. There were Picts to the north and north-east, Britons, who spoke a form of Welsh, in Strathclyde, to the east, and, beyond them, Northumbrian Angles in Lothian. Many fortifications remain from these turbulent iron age years - ruins of hill forts, duns and crannogs are everywhere in Argyll - and of these, the most important - probably the 'capital' of Scottish Dalriada - lies at Dunadd, in the heart of modern Mid-Argyll. No-one who visits this area should miss the short climb up Dunadd. From within its ruined walls, beside the traces of ceremonial rock carvings, you can, in your imagination, step back 1500 years to the times when curraghs were brought through the protective peat bogs, up the winding river Add, to the foot of the rock on which kings were crowned. It is quite likely that St. Columba visited here to talk matters through with the king of Scottish Dalriada before he established his settlement on Iona. The descendants of these kings, in the ninth century, were the first to unite a great part of modern Scotland under one crown, hence one justification for thinking of Mid-Argyll as the cradle of Scotland.

But Argyll has earlier links by far with Scotland's past. All through the Kilmartin Glen are prehistoric remains - the work of bronze and stone age peoples who can take us back as far as 4000 BC From the new stone age there are chambered burial cairns and traces of a wooden precursor of a stone circle. From the bronze age there are the stone circles themselves, also many roughly circular burial cairns holding stone chests or 'kists'. These kists once contained the bodies and ashes of the important families who must have held and farmed the fertile lands round the edge of the bogs. Through the centre of the glen runs a line of seven cairns, the exact significance of which is now lost, though they must surely, amongst other functions, have stood as an uncompromising statement of possession. As well as these major remains, there are, scattered throughout the glen, numerous standing stones, singly and in small groups. Natural rock surfaces are frequently marked with carvings, especially the enigmatic cup and ring marks which may be from the stone or bronze ages. The best group of these is at Achnabreck.

As you can see, for anyone interested in Scotland's origins, Argyll is a 'must visit'. When we add to the prehistoric remains, a wealth of early historic and mediaeval sites and realise that there is also plenty worth seeing from more modern times, the pull is greater yet. From the simplest chapels of the Celtic church to the earliest castles, from abandoned farming townships to the agricultural improvements of the nineteenth century (one elegant farm steading was once known by the name 'Experiment'), history is written in the landscape.

Isle of Islay: Mull of Oa

Islay

Islay, once home of the MacDonald 'Lords of the Isles', is famous to-day for its malt whiskies and birdlife as well as for its farming, fishing and shooting. Hills, moors and machair* are edged around by an infinitely varied coast, with rocks, beaches and dunes, salt marshes and cliffs. Good walking country.

* Machair is fertile ground on wind-blown shell-sand; well-drained and not acid, it can support a lovely short green turf with flowers.

History
Now apparently peripheral to the mainstream of Scottish life, in the days when land transport was difficult and the seas the sensible way to get around (not to mention an accessible source of food) Islay and its neighbours were focal points of human activity. Islay preserves a wealth of burial cairns, rock carvings and standing stones, including one incomplete stone circle.

Iron Age times may have brought intensified social and political conflict; the evidence is there in the remains of many fortifications - in all, around 80 on Islay alone. One of the most spectacular is Dun Athad, in the Oa, which we'll see. More peaceful activity is commemorated in the remains of several Early Christian chapels and crosses, of which Kildalton is the most outstanding.

Kilnave Cross

Islay played its part in the evolution of a united Scotland and also in resisting it. The very name 'Scotland' derives from the Roman name for the iron age Celtic people who, by the 6th century, occupied both Ulster and Argyll (Irish and Scottish Dalriada), perhaps colonising one from the other. From the ruling group of Scottish Dalriada, of which Islay would have been one of the richest parts, came the first king of a united nation in the 9th century. Later, though, especially from the 13th to the 15th centuries, the centralising Scottish state was very effectively resisted by the MacDonald, Lords of the Isles, by then ruling a virtually independent kingdom. Their power-base was at Finlaggan which thus has an historical significance that demands a visit. In between times, as elsewhere along the western seaboard, Islay underwent a series of Viking raids. These were followed, as they were not over most of the mainland, by extensive Norse settlement and a period (from 1098 to 1263) under the Norwegian crown. Evidence survives in numerous placenames of Norse origin.

The southern clan MacDonald made periodic attempts to revive the Lordship of the Isles until well into the 16th century, but, despite winning a last great clan battle against the MacLeans at Gruinart in 1598, their power in Islay slipped away, to be replaced, in the early 17th century, by Campbell domination, which continued, in more peaceful form, into the 19th century.

Modern Islay is a land of farms and of beautiful and distinctive planned villages whose whitewashed houses are a particularly attractive feature. These characteristics, differentiating the island from others in the Hebrides, are partly the result of its geology, topography and relative fertility, but also partly of the management policies of a succession of landowners. Chief among these was Walter Frederick Campbell, laird between 1816 and 1848, who did much to reorganise landholding patterns and to establish planned settlements. Where the Hebrides in general, following the clearance of the old communal farming townships, are a landscape of crofts* as well as farms, and a place where communities are scattered, Campbell bequeathed a landscape of farms and villages.

*Croft: a type of smallholding, with extensive shared grazing. They were very often established on poorer land while wealthier farming tenants got the best. A croft did not, in itself, provide sufficient income for a family.

Day-by-day programme

A typical week, subject to variables such as the weather, abilities of the group and any alterations to take account of lambing, deer stalking, etc. could be as follows:

1. Saturday: Glasgow - Oban via Glen Coe 2. Sunday: Isle of Kerrera 3. Monday: Garvellachs and Isle of Luing 4. Tuesday: Loch Awe and Innis Chonnel Castle 5. Wednesday: Kilmartin Glen - Kennacraig - Islay 6. Thursday: Port Charlotte, Finlaggan and Ardnave 7. Friday: Distillery, Kildalton and The Mull of Oa 8. Saturday: Islay - Glasgow

Saturday: Glasgow - Glen Coe - Oban
Meet in Glasgow (city centre, station or airport) in the early afternoon. We will drive via Rannoch Moor and Glen Coe to Oban. Arrival in Oban late afternoon. We will stay 4 nights in Oban.

Gylen Castle, Isle of Kerrera

Sunday: Isle of Kerrera
A circuit of the south end of the Island of Kerrera via dramatically-situated Gylen Castle. Scenically beautiful, with new views opening out as we follow successive turns of the coast clockwise from the ferry landing, there's a lot of historical and geological interest on this walk. The confined Sound of Kerrera gives way to more open views south towards the islands of Seil and Scarba, followed in turn by the sudden appearance of Gylen Castle, its prominent silhouette backed by the hills of Mull across the wide Firth of Lorn. Turning north gives yet more new views towards Lismore and the hills beyond lining the long, straight rift where Loch Linnhe leads towards the distant Great Glen.

Monday: Garvellachs and Isle of Luing

We will go by hired boat for a trip through the Gulf of Corryvreckan to the uninhabited Garvellachs, also romantically-named 'Isles of the Sea'. Formed in the Precambrian Age, the islands are approximately one billion years old. The isles have steeply angled sides when viewed from the north-east, and present vertical cliffs to the north-west. To the landward side, they appear as green islets, full of wildflowers among the pink quartz and limestone boulders.
Weather permitting, we will land on Eileach an Naoimh, Gaelic for Isle of the Saints, to explore the ruined remains of an ancient Celtic monastery believed to have been founded by St. Brendan in 542 AD. Due to its remoteness, the ruins are well preserved and the 'beehive' corbelled stone cells from the 9th century monastery are still there.

Back on the mainland we will drive north to Seil island, which can be reached directly by road across Telford's high-arched, 200 year-old so-called 'Bridge over the Atlantic'. Cross the island and you reach another, quieter and with a character all its own: the isle of Luing, where we will walk today. Luing and Seil are separated by a short ferry ride across the Cuan Sound. At mid-tide the Sound is more like a rushing river and a spectacle in its own right as can be the islet-strewn Sound of Luing, which we overlook later on, away to the west.
From Luing's rocky shore and low, grassy ridges there are excellent views to south Mull and back to the Garvellachs where we have been this morning. At one time, Luing and Seil were home to a thriving slate-quarrying industry that roofed much of western Scotland before a combination of floods and competition from cheaper materials ended it. The quarrymen's houses remain, especially at Cullipool and Ellanbeich, but the islands today have an entirely rural character. A breed of beef cattle, developed in the last 50 years by a local farming family and seen throughout the island, takes its name from Luing itself.

Innis Chonnel Castle, Loch Awe, Argyll

Tuesday: Loch Awe and Innis Chonnel Castle
We will take a boat across Loch Awe to the ruin of 13th century Innis Chonnel Castle. The castle has a special atmosphere lost to the better known and more visited ruins. It has not been ‘tidied’, but rises from its island as a living part of the rocks and the trees. It also has historical importance as the seat of clan Campbell power in mediaeval times.

Our walk for today takes us through the woodland between Loch Awe and Loch Avich with good views across both lochs. We walk through a range of woodland types, first into the Dalavich Oakwood, through the conifers at the heart of Inverliever forest, past the flushed peat bog of the Dry Loch before dropping down to the birch woodland along the shore of the beautiful Loch Avich. On our way back to Loch Awe will walk past the spectacular waterfall in the river Avich.

Wednesday: Kilmartin Glen - Kennacraig - Islay
Kilmartin House, our first stop, sets out the story of Kilmartin Glen down the ages with an inspired combination of imagination and clarity. Worth an hour of anyone's time and not to be missed.
Our walk takes us along a good cross-section of Kilmartin's prehistoric and early historic monuments - a stone circle, burial cairns and iron age forts and sculpted stones.
Dunadd was the capital hill fort of the Scots - iron age Celtic colonists from the Irish kingdom of Dalriada - from at least the 6th century to the 8th and probably longer. No visitor to this area with a feel for the history in a landscape should miss it, so we stop there before we continue our journey. A short walk and a little climb to the top of the hill rewards you with the opportunity to place your feet in the carved print where kings of Scots may well have placed theirs on being crowned.

Isle of Islay: Port Ellen

We then take the road to Kennacraig for the ferry to Islay. This is a very scenic trip through the old planned town of Lochgilphead and on down the shores of Loch Fyne to the charming village of Tarbert. Here there may be time for a wander about to admire what must be one of Scotland’s prettiest villages.

The ferry crossing to Islay takes 2.5 hours. We will have our evening meal on the ferry.

Accommodation for the remaining three nights is on Islay.