The Slate Islands Easdale

A Memory of Easdale.

                                                  THE SLATE ISLANDS
                                                        By Walter Deas

Some 24k (15 miles) south and west of Oban lies an area with interesting old villages, megalithic cairns, Iron Age forts, standing stones and castles. One heads south on the Oban - Lochgilphead Road, leaving this road at Kilninver, eventually reaching the Clachan Bridge. It is well known as the Atlantic Bridge as it actually crosses the Atlantic, which flows, between Argyll and Seil Island.

The site was selected as early as 1787, and John Stevenson constructed the bridge in 1791 at a cost of four hundred and fifty pounds.

Once across there is the Tigh an Truish Inn, ‘The House of Trousers’. So named because when the kilt was banned during the Jacobite rebellion, soldiers would change to trousers before heading over to the mainland and change back into their kilts on their way home.

Travelling south towards the island of Luing before heading over to Easdale, one can find the old Seil cemetery on the left of the crossroads. It contains some interesting carved gravestones dating from the 14th and 15th century.

One that intrigued my wife, Jean and I in the 1980s was the broken table-tomb of the MacLaclans, which was situated close to an arched recess on the northern side of the burial ground Here we found the Chin of MacMarquis.  This was an oddly shaped piece of basalt, about 30cm (12 inches) high. It resembled a jutting human chin which we were told could turn of its accord and point in the direction of the most recent burial It was also stated that if it was removed it mysteriously it returned to its customary spot in the churchyard. However its power must have waned as it has now disappeared and has not been seen since!

The village on Seil should be called Ellenabeich (The Isle of Birches). But over the years, both it and the island of Easdale have jointly been named Easdale. Ellenabeich is now a peaceful village but a century ago it was a hive of industry. It was one of the main centers of slate quarrying. From 1842 to 1862, slates to the value of  £50,000.000 were cut from the ground. That was a vast sum of money in those days. In 1881 the quarries were being worked to a depth of 250 feet, (76m). Castle Stalker (built 1631) north of Oban in Appin was roofed with Easdale slates and they were also incorporated into Iona Abbey on the island of Mull and Cawdor Castle in Inverness-shire and buildings in Eastern Canada and New Zealand and Australia also bear roofs of Easdale slate.

Early in the morning of Tuesday, November 1881 a westerly gale of unparalleled ferocity pounded against the islands. The seas smashed the retaining walls and thousands of tons of water poured into the quarries and within a few hours the prosperity of the slate islands had been shattered. However with hard work some of the quarries were re-opened but eventually the industry declined as slate lost way to clay tiles.

Most of the population eventually moved to other areas in search of work and the village became empty and forlorn. Many migrated to Canada, Australia and New Zealand through earlier contacts made in the slate trade.

Today Ellenabeich boats a charming square overlooking the harbour, a village shop, the Oyster Bar Restaurant and the nearby Highland Arts Exhibition geared for the tourists.

In Back Street is the Slate Islands Heritage Centre, which records the social and industrial history of the area. It provides information about the geology and natural history of the islands and supplies maps and details.

Easdale Sound separates the nearby island of Easdale from Ellenabeich, and small ferryboat plies back and forth on call taking only a few minutes, which can be a pleasant trip on a sunny day.

The island, about half a mile across was once the centre of a very productive slate quarrying industry in Argyll. A half-hour walk around the island reveals quantities of slate waste and rusting machinery.

Today, most of the old dwellings are again in use and the slate-built wharves and quays with neat rows of whitewashed cottages give the area a quaint old-world beauty of its own, loved by artists and tourists alike. The main industry today is tourism. There is a Restaurant and the Puffer Bar, which at present serve as the focal point for both visitors and residents. The nearby Drill Hall undergone a major renovation and is well used by the community.

There is also the Easdale Island Folk Museum, set up in 1980 by the then owner of the island, Chris Nicholson. The curator, Jean Adams MBE is a direct descendant of one of the quarry workers, a Duncan McGreggor. It was Jean, with the assistance of local residents and families of past quarry workers who had kept in touch with the island, collected, collated and arranged displays and artefacts all of from the surrounding area.

Although small, it covers every aspect of live during the years when the quarries were productive. It is a fascinating and professionally presented record of time past.

Who would think that today’s rows of white washed cottages were once the centre of the Scottish slate quarrying industry. Against a blue sky the charm is all there in the old dwellings, the green of the Square, the harbour and the water filled quarries.


© Walter Deas. 2008.