Wildlife Chronicles

THE MACHAIRS OF SOUTH HARRIS by Bill Lawson

On the west coast of Harris, you can enjoy clean air, peace, and above all the incredible colours of the sand, sea and mountains. Experience the carpets of wildflowers on the machair, the pure white deserted beaches, and the luminous colours of the sea, ranging from aquamarine to an incredible red, where the peat-coloured rivers cross the white sands - all set in an are full of history, from prehistoric times to the days of the Highland Clearances.

Machair is the arable land produced by the blowing of lime-rich shell sand over the naturally acid soil of Harris. In the winter, it is reduced to a sparse covering of green over the sand, but in the summer it explodes into a riot of colour, with wild flowers ranging from the whites and yellows of springtime to the reds and blues of the autumn.

The most easily accessible machairs for the visitors are at the school at Seilebost, at Horgabost and at Taobh Tuath, but do please remember that machair is a fragile land-form, and is easily destroyed. So leave your car at the nearest parking place, and enjoy the machair on foot - you will see the flowers much better that way, and be able to appreciate the sweetness of their fragrance away from the smell of exhaust fumes!

Prehistory

When prehistoric man arrived in Harris, about 3000 BC, the appearance of the machair would have been very different. The weather was warmer and drier, and much of the hill-land would have been covered with birch and hazel scrub. The machairs probably extended further to the west than they do now, and the bays of Losgaintir and Taobh Tuath would have been dry land, probably arable. From this period date the Underground Houses which have been found in many places on the machair. None of these are visible today, but you can still find their middens, or refuse heaps, of empty shellfish, and occasionally pottery.

Gradually the climate deteriorated. The sea level rose, drowning parts of the machair, and the land drainage was unable to cope with the increased rainfall, so peat - the partially decomposed remains of grass, moss etc. - started to grow at a rate calculated at 1 inch every 60 years. Tree roots can still be found in peat banks, and even under the sea, but the growing peat smothered much of the natural vegetation of the island. Peat was at one time the sole fuel source of the island, and large amounts are still cut and dried on the moors as fuel for the long winter nights.

From the Bronze Age, c2000 BC, date the Standing Stones. The most impressive of these is Clach Mhicleoid, on the headland above Traigh Iar, between Horgabost and na Buirgh, but another, Clach Steinigrie, can be seen on the shore at Sgarasta. These stones were probably primarily calendar stones, with the length and position of the shadow telling the seasons, but they were also the sites of religious rites, as well as landmarks from the sea.

From the Iron Age we have Duns, or Watch-tower Forts. The best preserved of these are on the offshore island of Tarasaigh, but there are examples too at na Buirgh and on Aird Groadnis, behind Losgaintir. There was a chain of these watch-towers all along the western coasts of the islands, ready to pass a message by fire when danger threatened from raiders from the sea.

The Western Isles were taken over by the Norsemen in the 9th century, and their influence can still be seen in their place-names, which are still in use, in a Gaelic guise. '-bost' for a village, as in Seilebost and Horgabost, '-val' for a hill, as in Bleabhal and Chaipabhal, and '-vat' for a loch, as in Langabhat and Cistabhat, are examples.

Modern History

By the sixteenth century, Harris belonged to the Clan MacLeod of Harris and Dunvegan, with their main religious centre at Roghadal, at the southern tip of Harris. There was also a medieval church at Sgagarsta, though no signs of the old church of Cille-Bhride now remain the graveyard in front of the present church. The ruins of another ancient church, Teampull na h-Uidhe, still stand on a headland on the south side of Chaipabhal, beyond Taobh Tuath. The Teampull was probably built by Alasdair Crotach, 8th Chief of the MacLeods, in about 1530.

Until the end of the eighteenth century, almost all of the habitation of South Harris was on the machair and the offshore islands, and the Bays of the east coast were used only as summer grazings, but in the 1780s the Bays were settled as fishing villages. At the same time the landlords of Harris began to introduce sheep-farming to the island, and in the 1800s the villages of the machair were gradually cleared, and their people sent to Cape Breton or the Bays, until 1852 not a single crofter was left on the machair.

The whole area became sheep farms, and the remains of farm steadings can still be seen at Borgh Mhor (Borve), Scarasta Bheag and Taobh Tuath (Northton). Later the farm at Losgaintir which now included all the land North of na Buirgh, was made into a deer forest. Lochs were damned to improve the fishing, like the Fincastle Pool at Losgaintir road end, and the Northern end of the machair was turned into a sporting estate, with the best land in Harris kept for feeding deer and rabbits!

Crofter agitation, and the demands of ex-soldiers after the 1914-1918 War, led to the breakup of the farms into crofting villages, beginning with Taobh Tuath in 1902, and extending by the 1930s to the whole of the machair.

The Environment

It is sometimes thought that Harris is an example of wilderness in its natural state, but this is not correct. The hill slopes are ridged with feannagan, or lazy-beds, where the thin soil was heaped in ridges to give depth and drainage for the growing of crops and fodder. The green patches of the airighean or summer shielings dot the hills, and the sites of pre-clearance houses can still be seen amid the nettles around their ruins. In the days of the sheepfarms the land was spoiled by the selective grazing of their stock, and although the return of the crofters was brought with it a return to cattle economy, the economies of agriculture have now led to a return of the monoculture of sheep, and it's resultant overgrazing and impoverishment of the land.

Flowers

The bays of Losgaintir and Taobh Tuath have wide meadows of sea-pink, or thrift, while the machairs behind them show daisies and buttercup, clover, orchids, harebell, and knapweed, as well as the lowlier plants of gentian, centaury, eyebright and thyme. On the wetter lands there are clumps of iris, primrose and bog pimpernel, while the more acid peatlands are the home to heathers, milkwort and cotton-grass, as well as the interesting insectivorous plants of sundew and butterwort.

Birds

The machair side of Harris has a very varied bird life, since it has mountains, moors, machairs and shores all in close proximity. The buzzard and the golden eagle share the mountains with all too many ravens and hooded crows. The moors have populations of golden plover and snipe, and the strange humming sound of the snipe's aerial display can be heard most still evenings. The arable ground attracts the rare corncrake, while the wetter areas of machair form the breeding ground for incredible numbers of wading birds - redshank, lapwing and ringed plover being the most common.

Viewpoints

The machairs of Harris are full of arresting views, but our personal favourites are the colours of the sea-pools along the Losgaintir road in the evening light, the hills of North Harris seen above the sands from the parking place between Seilebost and Horgabost, and the sands of Sgarasta from the parking place at the Golf Course. No doubt you'll find your own favourites!