The island of Vatersay (; ) is the southernmost and westernmost inhabited island in the

Outer Hebrides The Outer Hebrides ( ) or Western Isles ( , or ), sometimes known as the Long Isle or Long Island (), is an Archipelago, island chain off the west coast of mainland Scotland. It is the longest archipelago in the British Isles. The islan ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

, and the settlement of Caolas on the north coast of the island is the westernmost permanently inhabited place in Scotland. The main village, also called Vatersay, is in the south of the island.

Geography

Vatersay is irregularly shaped and has a

tombolo A tombolo is a sandy or shingle isthmus. It is a deposition landform by which an island becomes attached to the mainland by a narrow piece of land such as a spit or bar. Once attached, the island is then known as a tied island. The word ''t ...

: it is composed of two rocky islands (north and south) linked by a sandy

isthmus An isthmus (; : isthmuses or isthmi) is a narrow piece of land connecting two larger areas across an expanse of water by which they are otherwise separated. A tombolo is an isthmus that consists of a spit or bar, and a strait is the sea count ...

. The isthmus is covered in sand dunes and on either side are large white-sand beaches: Bàgh Siar (West Bay), and Bàgh Bhatarsaigh (Vatersay Bay) to the east. There are a number of beaches backed by sand dunes. The island is about from north to south, and the northern section of the island is about from west to east. Vatersay is linked to the larger island of

Barra Barra (; or ; ) is an island in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland, and the second southernmost inhabited island there, after the adjacent island of Vatersay to which it is connected by the Vatersay Causeway. In 2011, the population was 1,174. ...

to the north by the approximately

Vatersay Causeway The Vatersay Causeway () is a 250-metre-long causeway that links the Scottish Hebridean Islands of Vatersay and Barra across the Sound of Vatersay (). The causeway was constructed between 1989 and 1991, and provides a direct link between V ...

, which was completed in 1991. This is of great benefit, as the shipping of goods and passenger traffic no longer has to rely on a small passenger ferry boat. Access to school and for emergency services is also much quicker and easier. The causeway is about by road from Castlebay. At low tide, the island is also linked to the islet of Uineasan to the east, which is about 5 hectares, depending on the tide. To the south are the uninhabited islands of Pabbay, Mingulay and

Sandray Sandray () is one of the Barra Isles in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. It never had a large population, and has been uninhabited since 1934. It is now known for its large seabird colony. Geography Sandray is half a mile due south of Vaters ...

Wildlife

Wildlife on the island includes

Eurasian otter The Eurasian otter (''Lutra lutra''), also known as the European otter, Eurasian river otter, European river otter, common otter, and Old World otter, is a semiaquatic mammal native to Eurasia and the Maghreb. The most widely distributed member o ...

s, seals and grey herons. Bonnie Prince Charlie's flower ('' Calystegia soldanella''), reputedly originating from French seeds dropped by

Bonnie Prince Charlie Charles Edward Louis John Sylvester Maria Casimir Stuart (31 December 1720 – 30 January 1788) was the elder son of James Francis Edward Stuart, making him the grandson of James VII and II, and the Stuart claimant to the thrones of England, ...

is, in Scotland, found only on Vatersay and Eriskay. Also found on Vatersay are

Atlantic puffin The Atlantic puffin ('), also known as the common puffin, is a species of seabird in the auk family (biology), family. It is the only puffin native to the Atlantic Ocean; two related species, the tufted puffin and the horned puffin being found ...

Archaeology

The island has remains of an

Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...

broch In archaeology, a broch is an British Iron Age, Iron Age drystone hollow-walled structure found in Scotland. Brochs belong to the classification "complex Atlantic roundhouse" devised by Scottish archaeologists in the 1980s. Brochs are round ...

at Dun a' Chaolais overlooking the Sound of Vatersay, and nearby is a

passage grave A passage grave or passage tomb consists of one or more burial chambers covered in earth or stone and having a narrow access passage made of large stones. These structures usually date from the Neolithic Age and are found largely in Western Europ ...

dated to the 3rd millennium BC. There is also a

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

cemetery at Trèseabhaig south of the heights of Heiseabhal Mòr and a cairn built around 1000 BC west of the village of Vatersay. The offshore islet of Bioruaslum has a walled

fort A fortification (also called a fort, fortress, fastness, or stronghold) is a military construction designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from La ...

that may be of

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

provenance.

Ownership

At the end of the nineteenth century, the existing landowner, wanting to use the whole of the island for their own farming purposes, evicted all the existing

crofter A croft is a traditional Scottish term for a fenced or enclosed area of land, usually small and arable, and usually, but not always, with a crofter's dwelling thereon. A crofter is one who has tenure and use of the land, typically as a ten ...

inhabitants. Between 1902 and 1906, in a sequence of land raid actions, some of the men, the so-called "Vatersay Raiders", returned and took possession of land, claiming that an ancient law allowed a man to acquire land by building a wooden dwelling and lighting a fire on its hearth within a day. However, the landowner Lady Cathcart took them to court, and they were imprisoned. After much public protest at these events, in 1909, the Congested Districts Board (Scotland) bought Vatersay island for £6250 (), and it was divided into 58 crofts.

Wrecks

In September 1853, the ''Annie Jane'', a three-masted migrant ship out of

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

bound for

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

, Quebec, Canada, struck rocks off West Beach during a storm. Within ten minutes the ship began to founder and break up, casting 450 people into the raging sea. In spite of the conditions, islanders tried to rescue the passengers and crew. There were only a few survivors. A small cairn and monument marks the site where the bodies recovered from the sea were buried. An inscription reads:

On 28th September 1853 the ship Annie Jane with emigrants from Liverpool to Quebec was totally wrecked in this bay and threefourths of the crew and passengers numbering about 350 men women and children were drowned and their bodies interred here.

Two Chinese seamen from the SS ''Idomeneus'', which sank on 28 September 1917, are also buried somewhere near the monument. There is a commemorative headstone in Cuier Churchyard. The remains of a Catalina flying boat that crashed on the slopes of Heiseabhal Beag in 1944 lie in a stream bed near the shore."Consolidated Catalina: Vatersay, Heishival Beg"
Canmore. Retrieved 13 November 2011.

Notes

References

Cited sources

*Branigan, Keith (2007) ''Ancient Barra: exploring the Archaeology of the Outer Hebrides''. Comhairle nan Eilean Siar.

External links

Panorama of the West Bay on Vatersay (Annie Jane burial cairn and monument)
(QuickTime required) {{Islands of Scotland Barra Isles Barra Clan MacNeil