The Ring of Brodgar

I had been looking forward to seeing Skara Brae, one of the key reasons for our journey to the far north. It wasn’t to be. We arrived to find the site closed because of gale force winds. I found that hard to believe. Wind for goodness sake. Still, despite my grumblings we settled for a Neolithic alternative, the Ring of Brodgar and its surrounds. There we discovered what a gale force wind meant.

 Brodgar was inland, Skara Brae on the coast, the wind there even fiercer. Brodgar  was bad enough. We were playthings in its grasp. Walking uphill with the wind behind us, cagoules billowed, and we flew up like kites. Taking photographs was even more difficult: feet firmly planted in a vain attempt to gain anchorage we waited for when the wind took breath. In those brief moments, when we weren’t being buffeted like punching bags, ten or more camera phones clicked. 

The Ring of Brodgar is older than the Pyramids and Stonehenge, the neighbouring stones of Stenness even older. A neighbouring  site, the Ness of Brodgar, was once a vast ceremonial centre that attracted people far and wide. Partially excavated it has since been ‘reburied’ in order to preserve it for future archaeologists.

All three sites illustrate how central Orkney was in Neolithic commerce.  At a crossroads of sea routes, the island was a vital point for trade and travel across the North Atlantic. The thousands of artefacts unearthed, artefacts from across northern Europe and further south  add to the evidence of a thriving neolithic civilisation.

 

The Stones of Stenness originally twelve are now down to seven, largely because of a deranged farmer tired of tourists tramping his land. He demolished five of them and was about to blow up another until angry locals prevented him. The so-called Odin stone has now also unfortunately vanished but remains potent in folk lore and myth. For those interested in the Odin Stone and the  doomed love of  a hapless Orkney pirate click here and scroll down.

For just more on Gow in more intimate detail, click here 

From Mordor to Stornoway

Enroute to Stornoway, we sailed past Fingal's Cave,  the Isle of Skye and other, smaller islands. It felt like we were taking the sea route to Mordor. 

Fingal’s Cave

Stornoway is famous for its black pudding and for being an integral part of the late night shipping forecast. It also has a long history of conflict, largely over land. It was occupied by the Vikings who called it Stjórnavágr, its main settlement being built around a natural harbour. 

Stornoway and harbour

In later years it was controlled by Clan  MacNicol, who were later dispossessed by Clan MacLeod who in turn struggled against the greed of other more legal minded Scots egged on by James VI who in 1598 ‘gave’ the island to a trading company, ‘The Fife Adventurers.’ Great name.

His great desire was the ‘de-Gaelicisation’ of the islands, demanding the ‘slauchter, mutilation, fyre-raising or utheris inconveniencies’ if necessary. As far as I can see, the Scots had little to learn from the English when it came to  colonialism. 

Stornoway successfully resisted, and in 1610, James, now King of England and Scotland ‘gave’ the island to the Mackenzie's of Kintail in the hope they’d prove more ruthless. Neil MacLeod was captured and taken to Edinburgh where, without irony, he was accused of fire raising, murder, piracy and theft, and beheaded. A noble would have been beheaded alive. A small mercy or perhaps final humiliation—Neil MacLeod was instead beheaded postmortem, his head put on a spike. The Mackenzies were quite ruthless in dispossessing tenants and ‘clearing’ the land, and the tradition continued when in 1844 Stornoway was bought for £500,000 by another Scotsman, James Matheson. 

The English are sometimes blamed for the Highland Clearances – especially amongst Scottish Nationalists who now like to distance themselves from the great Imperial Adventure—as if they had no part in it but were in fact the victims. James Matheson hadn't been given the message. He made his fortune from the ‘Opium Trade’ and the naked bullying of a then weak China. Having bought Stornoway he proceeded to build Lewes Castle, clearing 500 families off the land by encouraging them to emigrate to Canada. The policy was encouraged further by the Highland potato famine which saw over a third of population of the western Highlands and Isles  ‘move on.’ 

Lewes Castle. Victorian grandeur 

!

In 1918, Lord Leverhulme bought the Isles of Lewis and Harris. He had ambitious plans that would have 

revolutionised the lives of those living there. Fisheries, efficient farming, roads, the works. The problem was local crofters wanted no part of it. And they were prepared to fight.  Eventually Lord Leverhulme saw sense and abandoned the great project, though not without one final and generous flourish, returning the land and the castle itself to the people of Stornoway.