The black sheiling of Loch Crabhadail

The curving beach of Traigh Mheilein is a delight; a bold curve of dazzling white sand backed by dunes.  The seabed is also white sand for most of the width of the shallow Caolas an Scarp, and reflects light in beautiful aquamarine shades. I paddled along the length of the beach, then around Rubh an Tighe (point of the house) to land on yet another fine beach.

Even though it's comparatively sheltered, the beach at Loch Crabhadail (pronounced "Cravadale") clearly sees some big swell; the boulders at the top of the strand are of considerable size.  This is a quiet, empty spot, but it hasn't always been empty.

Between a small freshwater lochan and the beach, a distinctive pattern on the ground tells of different times when this land was farmed.  The system is known as rig and furrow, more commonly known as "lazy beds" (feannagan in Gaelic).

Scarcely can a more inappropriate term have been applied than "lazy".  The ground here is unpromising and poorly drained, so in order to grow crops it had to be modified.  The rigs were dug by hand and would have been built up using a mixture of sand and seaweed to make a usable gowing medium.  The furrows between the rigs helped to drain the soil and allowed potatoes and mabye some barley to be grown.  Usually the beds were re-made each year, sometimes at right angles to the previous year though here at Crabhadail they may have stayed in the same alignment due to the narrow site and the drainage to the lochan.  It must have been back breaking labour, but necessary to avoid starvation.  And, if that doesn't seem hard enough, when seaweed was in demand for making potash for glass and soap, many landlords banned their tenants from using it for fertilising the soil.

The line of an old wall can be seen at the end of the lazy beds, perhaps built to both shelter the crops from the wind and to keep out cattle.

What now seems an idyllic, lonely place would probably have held a couple of families - and although it's a beautiful setting, you can't live on a view.  This place was a sheiling, used mainly in summer by the people of Scarp and called Am Bhuaile Dubh (the black shieling).  Often it was the young folk and women who worked the sheilings, many Scarp and Harris men went away to work the herring fishery as the fish moved around the coast to the North Sea.

The remains of a couple of small houses can be seen, probably single roomed with low drystone walls and turf roofs.

The larger enclosures were used to confine cattle at night to stop them getting in at the crops; by day the beasts were herded away from the sheiling to graze.  There's a great deal of information about Scarp and the Crabhadail area on the Isle of Harris website -well worth a read.  As ever, these "rickles o' stanes" make me think about the people who made their lives here - all gone now.

Bogbean was flowering in the lochan, the waves on the beach were a gentle rhythm and above the crags a Golden Eagle turned on a thermal.  On this sunny day, Am Bhuaile Dubh and Loch Crabhadail were peaceful and evocative.  On another day just like today I'll come back here and camp in order to spend some time exploring and absorbing something of the place.