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General Features; Coast-line,
1.—Brodick Bay and Castle, 2.—Ascent of Goatfell, 3. —Corriegilla; Lamlash
Bay, 4.—Brodick to Loch Ransa; Corrie; Glen Sannox; The Fallen Rocks; The
Cock of Arran; Scriden, 5.—Loch Ransa, 6.—West Coast of Arran; Corrie an
Lachan; Caves and Cliffs at Tormore; Drumodune Point; Obelisks, Circles, and
Cairns, 7.—Shiskin to the Struey Cliffs; Tor Chastel; Southend Harbour; The
Black Cave, 8.—Kildonan; Pladda Island; Falls of Essiemore, 9—The Dippin
Rocks; Glen Ashdale; Attractions of Arran, 10.—Ailsa Rock, 11.
1. Arran is one of the most
remarkable of our islands. It presents in itself an epitome at once of
geology and of scenery, while it offers a rich field to the botanist,
conchologist, and student of the more minute and less perfect forms of
animal life; and in its antiquities it exhibits still further sources of
interest. In extent this island is about twenty-eight miles of extreme
length, and about twelve of average breadth, and it forms nearly a regular
parallelogram. The characters of the northern and southern divisions are
strongly contrasted. The great mass of the former consists of granite
mountains, upheaved to an elevation of from 2000 to 3000 feet, the highest
summit, that of Goatfell, being 2959 feet above the sea, while the southern
portion, generally elevated and hilly, does not, however, attain a higher
altitude than about 900 feet. While the mountainous portion is distinguished
by the very abrupt character of the closely grouped naked mountain masses,
the sharply serrated outlines and peaked summits of the connecting ridges,
and their deeply cleft and precipitous glens, corries, and ravines, the
other is spread out in the undulations characteristic of the trap,
porphorytic, and other igneous rocks, of which it is mainly composed—covered
with a deep stratum of peat and alluvium—cropping out, however, especially
on the coasts, in many bold perpendicular cliffs, and the hill faces
assuming a markedly terraced character, the stages of verdant and cultivated
slopes presenting an exceedingly pleasing appearance. The formations in the
order of their superposition are granites, coarse and fine grained, in mass
and in veins; clay slate and schists; old red sandstone; carboniferous
series (limestone, shales, coal, and hematite), new red sandstone, overlying
igneous rocks, viz., claystone, porphyry, lyenite, pitchstone, and
pitchstone porphyry; basalt, greenstone, porphyritic trap, and Amygdaloed.
This enumeration may serve to shew the geological attractions of Arran, than
which the student could not select a more instructive field of observation.
The subject will be found fully illustrated in "The Geology of the Island of
Arran," a detailed and very lucid treatise, by Andrew Crombie Ramsay, while
the pages of Macculloch form a mine of information, not only on the
geological but all the other features of the island. The general student of
natural history is referred to "Arran and its Natural History," by the Rev.
David Landsborough; and in the number of Murray's handbooks on Arran, a
large amount of miscellaneous matter is embodied.
An almost uninterrupted belt of gravelly
shingle—its landward surface carpeted with grassy sward and
pasture—encircles the island, affording a ready access round the coast, and
frequently tinted over with daisies and buttercups, and associated wild
flowers. The shores are generally steep and rocky. At the mouths of the
numerous streams are further considerable alluvial deposits. Large blocks of
granite from the primitive district lie scattered on the surface, and
imbedded in the gravel banks throughout the island.
2. On the east side of the island are two bays—Brodick
and Lamlash. The latter, being protected by an islet (Holy Isle) lying right
across, is a roadstead of frequent recourse to shipping in stress of
weather. Goatfell, whose peaked summit forms the apex of several converging
ridges, forming so many rocky shoulders, lies north of Brodick Bay.
Brodick Bay (twenty miles distant from Ardrossan)
is a scene of very varied and striking beauty. Well indented into the side
of the island, a fertile plain or valley, about a mile square, succeeds the
white sloping beach, and branches on the north into two other glens; Glen
Roza—running back northward into the heart of Goatfell and the other
associated granitic mountain ranges, which flank it with rugged
precipices—and Glen Shirray, extending to the west, and both presenting much
of wild picturesque beauty; while from the southern head of the bay extends
another opening—Glen Cloy—through softly swelling hills. Each of these
valleys sends down its channelled stream. The fertile fields and pastures,
and lower hill slopes, are bedecked with numerous houses (Brodick being the
most considerable village in the island), and variegated with trees; while
on the north side of the bay, Brodick Castle, a lofty and very old square
keep, with extensive additions of various ages, and some of them quite
recent, surmounts a rocky wooded bank. Behind the surrounding woods
stretches a long expanse of heath, and beyond rises the elegant tapering
form and gray peak of Goatfell. Nor must the accessories be forgotten of the
numerous boats and vessels which enliven the waters and shores of the bay.
The greater part of Arran has for centuries belonged to the family of
Hamilton, and Brodick Castle forms a favourite residence of the Marquis of
Douglas. In the gardens many exotic plants flourish in the open air.
3. The ascent of Goatfell is a frequent
excursion with visitors to Arran. It is noways difficult, and the ordinary
path leads from near the village inn, but the geologist will thread his way
along the course of the Onocan burn. The shoulders of Goatfoll and of the
adjoining mountains, especially Beinn Gnuis and Caistael Abdael, are
characterised by cyclopean walls of granite blocks. On the summit of the
last named, several such isolated masses rise to an elevation of perhaps a
hundred feet. Portions of the slopes of the southern shoulder of Goat-fell
exhibit masses of granite overlapping one another; and farther down a huge
horizontal slab of granite, called the Druid stone, rests on pillars of
stone. The eye, from the summit, looks down upon a series of sharp roof-like
mountain ridges, rising into spiry peaks, and intersected by deep and
precipitous hollows. The immediately near features, and especially of the
masses of Nature's masonry, give, we have been assured, a very tolerable
notion of the scenery of the Andes. With this rugged expanse the softer
character of other parts of the island form an immediate contrast. Around
stretch the waters of the ocean and of the Firth of Clyde and Loch Fyne, and
their very varied framework of hill and dale spread map-like before the
spectator. A peculiar feature of the granitic ranges is the frequency and
bowl-shaped configuration of the corries.
4. Between Brodick and Lamlash Bays the seaward
cliffs at Corriegills attain a height of about 500 feet.
Lamlash is distinguished by
the fine conical form, and on the east side the columnar cliffs of Holy
Island. The islet is about 1000 feet high, and three miles long, and is
almost completely covered over with the trailing Arbutus Uva-ursi. It gives
a double entrance to the bay, and is distinguished by the care of St. Molios,
a missionary from Iona, the waters of a spring in which were long held of
sovereign medicinal efficacy, and by the indistinct traces of a monastery
founded by John of the Isles. Kilbride is a mean village. There is a
vitrified fort on Dun Fionn, and several upright stones on the hill behind
the parochial manse, are among the numerous antiquarian vestiges, as
sepulchral cairns and obelisks, scattered over the island. There are similar
tall slabs of stone at Brodick. MacCulloch is disposed to regard those at
Lamlash as ruined cromlechs, similar to those in Cornwall, Wales, and
Guernsey, a species of monument comparatively rare in Scotland.
5. Between Brodick and Loch Ransa, another
smaller bay on the north or north-west of the island, lies the finest
section of the coast scenery. The rocky shore is indented by numerous
creeks, to all the sinuosities of which the encircling terrace in most parts
gives access. Many home-steads accompany our steps along the first part of
the coast, while the irregular cliffs, revealing glimpses of the lofty
mountain tops and their shelving sides, frequently strewed with broken
masses of shivered rock, are ornamented by trees and brushwood, frequently
descending to the very margin of the water.
In working the extensive limestone quarries at
the village of Corrie, artificial excavations of considerable extent have
been formed in the rocks. Further on, Glen Sannox is found running up from
the coast into the heart of Goatfell. Encompassed by spiry barriers of naked
granite, it presents, in common with others of the adjoining glens, but
perhaps in higher degree, in its breadth of light and shade, its silent and
unadorned grandeur, much of the character of the wild solitudes of the
Cuchullins in Skye.
About two miles north of Glen Sannox, the upper part of the cliff having
given way, has strewed the whole abrupt hill-face and the shore with huge
masses of rocks—called the Fallen Rocks—and again at Scriden, the most
northerly point of the island, a similar appearance is presented on a still
larger scale, there having been a landslip of the strata which affected
almost the entire hill even to the summit, covering the declivity and the
shore to the sea-margin with an avalanche of rock for a space of about a
mile, the passage through which is uneven, tortuous, and somewhat
troublesome. But the scene is highly picturesque, accompanied by a peculiar
impression of the possible o'ertoppling of the impending fragments. Several
deep lateral chasms run alongst the broken fragments; and a similar rent of
great depth, which, being almost covered with heather, might prove dangerous
to the unwary observer, seams the hill near its summit, where there has been
comparatively little displacement otherwise. To the east of this rugged
space there is a large detached block of rock upon the beach, a well-known
landmark, called "The Cock of Arran;" but decapitation has impaired the
resemblance it used to bear to a cock flapping his wings.
6. Loch Ransa, an inlet of about a mile in
length, by from half a mile to a mile in width, is one of the scenes of most
sequestered attractiveness in Arran. It is encompassed by the imposing
serrated mountain ranges, from which rise the peaks of Caistael Abdael and
Cairn na Caelleach, pierced by two narrow glens—Glen Chalmadale and Eis na
Bearradh—and flanked on the south by the elegant cone of Torrnaneidneon. A
promontory projects from the south shore, which encloses an inner basin of
great depth. On this neck of land stands the shell of one of the royal
castles, erected in the fourteenth century. It consisted chiefly of two
square towers connected by high curtains. Loch Ransa is only five or six
miles from the coast of Cantyre, on which the massive old castle of Skipness
is conspicuous. The loch is a favourite rendezvous of the vessels and boats
engaged in the Loch Fyne fishery; and the bustle of departure of an evening,
and of return with the spoils of the deep, and the operations of preparing
the fish for market—for most part in a fresh state—and shipping them on
board the attendant busses, contribute, during the fishing season, a
peculiar interest to the otherwise retired spot.
7. The west and south coast, and to Lamlash,
present less of continuous attraction than the portion between Brodick and
Loch Ransa. Still there are several points of interest. The northern portion
of the western coast slopes up from the sea, the cliffs attaining much of
the same altitude as those on the corresponding part of the cast coast. To
the south, the cliffs are lower. The whole line of coast is intersected by
several fine valleys, as Glen Catacol, a little south of Loch Ransa, Glen
Jorsa, towards the south of the northern or primitive division, and wider
valleys along the MIauchrie and Black Waters, towards the north of the
southern division of the island. The Cantyre coast, with Kilbrandon Sound
between, diversifies the view.
On the shore, near Thunderguy, south of Catacol,
two singular masses of rock will be observed, of peculiarly-contorted
schist. One of the most picturesque mountain lochs or tarns, and partaking
somewhat of the character of Coruishk, in Skye, is that of Corrie an Lachan,
in a deep hollow, in the recesses of Ben Varen, east of Thunderguy. The
steep encircling rocks which encompass it on all sides, except that towards
the sea, are almost bare of vegetation. Ben Varen is in form like a long
house with rounded roof, and on its summit are two of the Cyclopean walls,
meeting at right angles, of granite blocks, already mentioned as
characterising several of the mountain-tops of Arran.
At the village of Immachar, north of the Jorsa,
there is a ferry across to Saddell, in Cantyre, the distance being only
between four and five miles.
Between the mouths of the Mauchrie Water, and of
Shiskin, as the valley along the Black Water is called, an eminence rises,
called King's Hill, which presents to the sea a range of bold cliffs,
chiefly sandstone, but at Drumodhuin Point of basalt, and there
distinguished by the regularity of columnar arrangement. This hill is
crowned, on its landward side, by an immense rampart of loose stones, having
a gateway, and on the seaward front it is pierced by a number of water-worn
but dry caves, of which the largest, which is upwards of 100 feet in length,
by about 50 in width and height, is called the King's Cove, from having for
some time afforded shelter to the Bruce, when, after taking temporary refuge
in the Island of Rachrin, on the Irish coast, he sojourned for a time in
Arran, concerting measures for his adventurous but ultimately triumphant
descent on the opposite shores of Carrick, in Ayrshire. Stone slabs on the
floor doubtless have borne the gallant monarch's weight, and the
smoke-grimed roof, and the remains of bones of animals, are in all
probability referable to that anxious period of his stormy career. Rude
scratchings on the walls, in which patient decipherers detect
representations of objects of the chase, may have been traced by some of the
royal attendants. The fond credulity of the natives, however, ascribe them
to the Fingalian era. The smaller caves are dignified by the names of the
King's Larder, Stables, &c. The cliffs of the cave are appropriately
embellished with the royal fern, osmunda regalis, a plant which, in Arran,
has attained the great growth of twelve feet.
In the district about Mauchrie and Shiskin are
several tall upright slabs of stone, or obelisks, some of them from fifteen
to twenty feet high, and several stone circles and cairns, most likely
sepulchral memorials of a distant age. Of these last, there is a very large
one near the mouth of the Vale of Shiskin, and a little further up the glen
there is a circular mote hill. A good road leads across the country from
Shiskin to Brodick. 8.
From the mouth of the Black Water there is a ferry to Campbelltown, distant
about twelve miles. About the centre of the south end, and itself the most
southerly point of the island, a range of basaltic columns, called the
Struey Cliffs, rises to a height from 400 to 500 feet. The intermediate
shore between these and the Black Water is rocky. On a round and isolated
eminence, called Tor Chastel, connected with the adjoining land by a narrow
neck, there are traces of a round structure, probably a Danish burgh, and
also of defending outworks; but Mr. Landsborough mentions having been told
that human bones were, several years ago, discovered in considerable
quantities between the connected walls. The only other instance of the kind
that we have heard of is at Kyle Skou, on the west coast of Sutherlandshire.
A fertile tract of country, west of the Struey Rocks, is watered by the
Sliddery and the Torlin, and a number of minor streams, mostly with deep
water-courses. Southend harbour, near the mouth of the Torlin water, is a
very curious natural harbour, formed by trap-dykes, which are so disposed as
to compose sides, quay, and breakwater. Trap-dykes abound in this quarter.
At the commencement of the Struey cliffs is a large excavation called the
Black Cave, which is about 160 feet in length, about half that height, and
about one-fourth in breadth. The floor inclines upwards, and there is an
orifice at the inner end of the cave. Bennan Head forms a continuation of
the Struey Rocks. 9. At
the south-east corner of Arran stands an old square keep—Kildonan Castle.
Off shore lies the island of Pladda, on which there is a lighthouse. An
extensive plain occurs at Kildonan. It is traversed by the Glen of Auchinhew,
and on the course of the burn by which the latter is traversed, there is a
waterfall—Essiemore, or the Great Fall—of upwards of 100 feet in depth,
which plunges into an amphitheatre surrounded by lofty rocks composed of
sandstone, with overlying masses of greenstone and basalt.
10. North of Kildonan, a noble range of
precipices, called the Dippi*i Rocks, rise perpendicularly from the sea to a
height of 300 feet. A somewhat hazardous footing can be found along the base
of the cliffs. The dash of the waves close at hand, and the screams of the
wild fowl overhead, conspire to try the nerves of the adventurous wayfarer.
At one point, a stream issuing from the brink is projected beyond the base
of the rocks, forming an arch of whitened spray well known to mariners.
Glen Ashdale, a fertile and beautiful glen, runs
up from Whiting Bay. Towards the upper extremity of the glen, the burn
course is lined by walls of basalt, and the stream forms two successive
cascades, the lower about 100 feet, and the upper about one-half that
height; and still further up, the glen terminates, almost at the summit of
the hills, in a range of rude columnar cliffs.
Next in succession comes Lamlash Bay, which
completes the round of the coast.
Arran presents many attractions for a summer
sojourn, as well as to the mere tourist. There is capital deep-sea fishing
and good trouting in the streams, and there is plenty of game, excellent
bathing and boating; while it must be apparent that the scenery is of no
common order, and the variety very uncommon; while to the geologist, and
general student of natural history, there is perhaps no other district
equally inviting. There are lodgings to be had in several spots, and there
are small inns at intervals all round the coast. Brodick, in particular, is
a very favourite sea-bathing quarter, and there is a constant intercourse by
steam to the different ports on the Clyde.
AILSA.
11. Ailsa Rock, or the Perch of Clyde, forms an
interesting day's excursion from various points on the Firth. This insular
mass of columnar trap-rises abruptly from the water to a height of 1100
feet. Its base is irregularly elliptical, 3300 by 2200 feet, and the form of
the rock varies from that of an obtuse to an acute cone, according to the
position of the spectator. The colour of the rock is gray, which, mingled
with the green of its vegetation, exhibits the columnar structure to
peculiar advantage. The columns are not so nicely regular as those of Staffa,
but their effect from a little distance is quite perfect, and by many this
rock is considered a grander specimen of the kind than the other well-known
object. On the north-west the appearance is particularly striking. This side
is almost perpendicular, and composed of successive tiers of columns of
great magnitude, both as to length and diameter. The view is especially
fine, where a cave, with a grassy acclivity above, forms the centre point.
On the southern face there are ruins, still entire, of a square tower of
three single and vaulted apartments, on a terrace at about 200 feet above
the sea. Thus far the ascent is easy, but above becomes very steep, at times
among broken fragments of rocks piled together, their interstices filled
with prodigious nettles and other rank plants. Large patches of wild-flowers
are met with, remarkable for their uncommon growth, and the rich profusion
of their showy petals. Innumerable flocks of sea-fowl, with rabbits and
goats, tenant this lonely isle. |
