NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2016 SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER 37
Morvern
Remoteness and Emptiness
e depopulation brought about in the age of the
Clearances all but emptied the land. By 1930, numbers
occupying this vast tract had fallen to a little over 500. It was
here that they settled on the state-owned Forestry
Commission land where the evacuated St Kildans were
offered employment. eir far-flung, lonely island out in the
Atlantic was, ironically, tree-less.
e St Kildans were given the choice and elected to come
to Morvern and another way of life. Soon aer their arrival
they wanted to go back, but the Labour Government saw to
it that they were not permitted. eir occupancy has not
quite passed into the history books for there are still many
local residents who can recall them.
eir transition to a new life in Morvern was not easy, as
they were separated from one another and required to work
regular hours for wages from which to buy the necessities of
life. Virtually all was quite different to the manner in which
they and the generations of their antecedents had lived. e
last surviving inhabitant of St Kilda died earlier this year just
short of her 94th birthday; with her demise the story of these
evacuees passes from living memory to the history books.
Today the population is even fewer, standing at some 320
although, as with elsewhere, the increasing incidence of
second, or holiday homes is a new, additional factor in the
figures. ese are mainly dotted along the 12-mile-long little
coastal road west from Lochaline up to Drimnin.
Their Wish Granted
is route has several interesting features including the
shattered remnants of ancient forts at Dun Fhionnairidh and
Caisteal nan Con where the latter remnants date to the 17th
Century although they sit atop of Iron Age dun/fort. Just
inland from Rubha Shalachain, is the Clach na Criche or
Wishing Stone. e stone was on the old walking route for
funerals and here, the bearers would put the coffin down for
a rest. An implausible story goes that anyone who can dive
through the hole in the middle of the stone without touching
its sides, will have their wish granted.
e public road ends just past Bonnavoulin, beyond which,
in the holiday season, there is a passenger water-taxi service
to Tobermory in Mull. It is also where you find the Drimnin
Estate - a grand house and some 7,000 acres now providing
the usual Highland and Island holiday complex of cottages.
What goes on to the east of Lochaline is, however, a
completely different matter for here, on the site of the
mountain Meall na h-Easaiche, is the Glensanda super-
quarry. Admire or detest it, the scale and engineering of this
operation is awe-inspiring, producing ten million tonnes of
crushed granite a year. Once dislodged by blasting, the rock
is transported by dump truck to the primary crusher, and
thence to a vertical sha (the ‘glory hole’) which drops 1000'
to a conveyor belt.A Variety of Uses
is then takes the granite through a 1.1 mile-long,
horizontal tunnel to the secondary crusher on the shore
where it is loaded onto ships. e mountain is put to a variety
of uses, such as roads, railway-gravel, tunnels, even power
stations, both in Britain and all over Europe. It is said that
quarrying and production will continue until 2100 by which
time the cavity will be very considerable indeed.
Aggregate Industries owns the quarry and its glossy
Glensanda brochure is available on-line. Page 2 is haunting
with the old Maclean castle-tower on its rocky prominence
with the quarry bulking large behind, underneath a red sky.
Tolkein fans would be excused if they thought that this vision
inspired the great man in his depiction and designation of
Mordor, but, of course, he had died before excavations started
in 1982.
ough the intention has been to minimise the visual
impact from the coast, it is increasingly visible, particularly
from the CalMac ferries that ply across the Firth of Lorne
into and out of Oban. It is truly an industrial monster and,
to some conservationists, a sad reflection of society’s ever
increasing need to gobble up the very foundations of a wild
and lonely place.