A beloved landscape rich in heritage IAIN THORNBER
A large piece of important art has come back to the area from where it originated. Summer Evening, Aros, Isle of Mull, was painted in 1885 by the well-known Victorian landscape artist Waller Hugh Paton (1828-1895). The scene is of Aros Castle and was captured from a knoll near the White House looking south west across Port nam Buitsichean to the Hangman’s Rock below the castle, with Salen village and Ben More in the background.
Paton, who exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy, was the first Scottish artist to paint his pictures throughout the year in the open air. He specialised in scenery and was particularly skilful at catching the purple evening light on the hills. He was the leading exponent of the Pre-Raphaelite landscape in Scotland and was commissioned by Queen Victoria to make a drawing for her of Holyrood Palace. This interesting and impressive work is a fine example of his skill and close attention to detail.
There were reports of small shoals of herring being seen in these waters last summer but will they ever be as plentiful as they were a century or more ago? The local ‘hot spots’ used to be Loch Sunart and Loch Leven. Records show that in 1859 a single smack caught no less than 40 crans in one morning in Loch Sunart; with 750 fish to the cran and valued at 1/- per 100, this represented a considerable income at the time. Lachlan Maclean from Coll, in his book The Native Steamboat Companion, published in 1845, says he saw 500 boats simultaneously herring fishing in Loch Sunart. Most of them were probably open skiffs 15 to 16 feet long, with hoisted brown sails; what a sight that must have been. The late Alistair Cameron from Sunart, who wrote under the pen-name North Argyll, and whose erudite letters and articles graced these columns for more than 50 years, believed the last herring fishing of any importance in Loch Sunart must have been in the autumn of 1902. 1859 was also an excellent year for herring catches in Loch Leven. During a night in September - it was illegal to net during daylight hours - one vessel lifted no less than 60 crans, which sold at 10/- each. One eyewitness, who was familiar with the movement of herring in the loch over a long period, estimated there must have been the equivalent of more than 50,000 barrels of them swimming around at the time.
If herring were plentiful north of Oban, their numbers were even greater in the Sound of Islay and around Jura. Ian Mackinnon, a Jura man now living at Kilmelford, has a great interest in and a wide knowledge of the island’s past history - especially its remote west coast. Ian tells me there was once a herring-curing station at Cruib on the north shores of Loch Tarbert, where boats from Campbeltown, Oronsay, Colonsay and Ireland would take their catches for processing. So prolific were the herring in the loch at the time, the fishermen used to bring their wives and children with them. Many of them lived ashore in large caves between Cruib and Ruantallain where the remains of rusting bed ends and iron stoves can still be seen. There was even a school in one of the caves. 460 drift and seine-netters were recorded in Loch Tarbert and in 1894 the total catch in the Sound of Islay and Loch Tarbert for one season amounted to 35,000 cran, which sold at 10/- to 15/- shillings each.
Argyll, with its wild and rocky dangerous coastline, is fortunate in having many lighthouses. One of the most spectacular is Skerryvore, the tallest lighthouse in Scotland, which towers 156 feet above an exposed rock 12 miles south-west of Tiree. It was serviced from Tiree and built with great difficulty between 1838 and 1844 to the design of Alan Stevenson, whose nephew Robert Louis was the famous writer and author of Kidnapped.
According to an interesting and detailed invoice which has just come to light, more than 50 men worked on the rock when the Lighthouse Board began building in April 1838. Judging by their surnames, most of them were probably local. The majority, unsurprisingly, were masons, quarriers and labourers. There were also two smiths, a cook, two joiners, a clerk and an inspector of tools and shipping. The masons received 3/10d a day; the quarriers 2/6d; the smiths 3/4d; the labourers 1/8d; the cook 3/-; the inspector and the foreman joiner 7/- and the clerk had £75 a month.
Other expenses claimed against Skerryvore included: ‘Angus MacDonald, 13/4d for use of a horse and cart; £9.5.6d travelling charges and expenses by Alan Stevenson to Glasgow and several journeys to Greenock during ten days about cranes and beacons; £9.9.0d travelling expenses for John Currie with a horse from Edinburgh to Tiree overland by Inveraray and Oban; £96.8.6 travelling expenses of 23 workmen and a female cook from Aberdeen to Tiree, and 4/9d to Peter MacDonald with boat and crew discharging coal’.