Loch Eriboll; a Place of Grandeur, Geology, and History
Dawn at Loch Eriboll. The sun has not yet risen high enough to light up the small peninsula of Ard Neackie in the foreground.
Loch 'Orrible was how the Navy referred to Loch Eriboll during World War Two. Stuck up in the wilds of the North of Scotland, suffering at times freezing cold temperatures and frightening winds, you can understand that the sailors marooned there might not always have waxed lyrical about the place. Their only amusement seems to have been spelling out the names of their ships above the village of Laid, using the white quartzite rock that is plentiful in the area. Yet there are few sea lochs on the Scottish coast that can rival Eriboll for sheer beauty.
The loch has always been a haunt of shipping, a place of refuge in stormy conditions thanks to its deep waters. Timothy Pont, who visited the area as part of his survey of Scotland at the end of the 16th century, knew of this depth, and suggested on one of his sketches that there was at the southern end "180 fatham deepe a monstrous hole...". The Dutch cartographer Joan Blaeu duly transferred this information onto the map of Strathnaver that appears in his magnificent Atlas of Scotland, published in 1654.
Loch Eriboll, a detail from Joan Blaeu's map of Strathnaver first published in 1654. He has marked "a hole of 180 fathom deep" - information taken from Pont's sketch of the area.
William Daniell was much taken with Whiten Head, providing two images of it in his account of his voyage around the coast of Britain 1813 - 1924. The first depicts it at a distance, looking towards it over Rispond, the small settlement that lies at the mouth of the loch on the western coast.
William Daniell's aquatint c1820 looking from Rispond across Loch Eriboll to Whiten Head.
The other image is from the loch itself.
"Whitenhead, Loch Eribol", an aquatint by William Daniell, 1820.
Daniell has indicated some of the rock strata on the nearer cliff: he knew his geology, or at least the geology that John MacCulloch knew, and commented that "the Whitenhead affords an opportunity of tracing the superposition of the gneiss to the quartz rock." The problem that set the Highlands Controversy underway, in a nutshell! The headland is also full of caves, the haunt of seals. John Knox on his tour round the west and north of Scotland in 1786 noted that "bold men enter the caverns in boats, and having lighted their torches, make a loud noise which brings down the animals in a confused body, with frightful shrieks and cries. They pass out of the caves in such numbers that the men are obliged to give way until the torrent hath spent itself, when they fall upon the stragglers who they knock on the heads with clubs."
This next image must be one of the earliest depicting the loch itself, looking southwards from Ard Neackie.
"Loch Eribol, from Hailaim Inn." The Inn had been built by the Duke of Sutherland precisely for travellers like the Reverend Charles Lessingham Smith.
The engraving is from Excursions through the Highlands and Isles of Scotland in 1835 and 1836, by the Reverend Charles Lessingham Smith. A splendid account that included some first ascents on Skye, in the company of a shepherd guide. There was a ferry here that linked Heilem (here Hailaim) to the western shore of the loch.
An early 20th century photograph of Ard Neackie, at a time when the Lime Kilns found there were still being worked. The main building is the inn erected by the Duke of Sutherland - his coat-of-arms still lies over the door. The pier for the ferry can be seen leading out from the Lime Kilns.
This was the pier on the western shore of the loch, at Portnancon.
The hill seen on all these images at the southern end of the loch, called Creag na Faoilinn, was another spot offering crucial information for geologists trying to understand the succession of rocks in the 19th century. But the most important location for this is Ben Arnabol, which rises to the east of Heilem and Ard Neackie. This hill contains the 'Lapworth sections', where the old gneiss rock can be seen sitting on top of the quartzite. You can see it clearly from the road that runs from Durness to Tongue.
Ben Arnaboll, from the Durness to Tongue road. The Lapworth sections can be seen where there is a short section of lighter, yellow rock.
Close-up of the Lapworth sections.
Moving into the 20th century, Loch Eriboll was the dramatic scene at the end of the Second World War when the fleet of German U-Boats was ordered to surrender, some being instructed to head for Eriboll. For more detail of this, I can point you in the direction of The Grey Wolves of Eriboll by David Hird (Whittles), which describes in some detail the tension as the boats entered the loch. There was no knowing whether they would attempt a last bold defence of their boats, a suicidal stand, but in the end there was no such defiance.
I have a small number of private photographs, presumably taken by someone on board one of the Naval ships waiting for the arrival of the U-boats. Or possibly there to tow the boats off further south to their final resting-places. If anyone can help in identifying what is going on in my photos, I would be pleased to hear from them. Some of the images are clearly not of Loch Eriboll.
This is clearly Whiten Head in the background. Is the U-boat being towed away?
U-boat 802 is identified by Hird as one of the vessels that was sent to Eriboll.
This, and the two images below could possibly be in Loch Eriboll.
A U-boat in tow.
The last two photographs are almost certainly not taken at Loch Eriboll.
There are no buildings like these on the shore of Loch Eriboll.
Loch Eriboll has probably never witnessed a more dramatic moment than this, when the German fleet surrendered. But it is visited increasingly by summer visitors, for the NC500 coastal route winds its way round the loch - it is too deep for a bridge or causeway as now exists across the Kyle of Tongue.
For more insights into the area I can recommend Alan Clark's Diaries (the politician of the Thatcher years), for he had a house on the shores and visited regularly. And another Clarke family (no relation) were resident on the shores for two centuries, a story told in Two Hundred Years of Farming in Sutherland, by Reay D.G. Clarke (The Islands Book Trust).