•  Garvellachs, Argyll

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In 1882-4, Frances Groome's Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland described Garvellachs like this:

Garvelloch, a group of four pastoral islets in Jura parish, Argyllshire, 2¼ miles W of Lunga. They extend 4 miles from NE to SW, and are nowhere more than ½ mile broad; are now valuable solely on account of the excellence of their pasture for sheep and black cattle; but have yielded marble, a specimen of which exists at Inverary Castle. ...

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Adamnan terms them Insula Hinba or Hinbina, and in 545 St Brendan seems to have founded a monastery on the most westerly of the group, Eilean na Naoimh ('island of the saints'). Swept away by the defeat of the Dalriadan Scots in 560, this monastery was refounded a few years after by St Columba; and 'still,' says Dr Skene, 'there are remains of some very primitive ecclesiastical buildings which we can identify with Columba's monastery, the first he founded after that of Iona, and which, fortunately for us, owing to the island being uninhabited, not very accessible, and little visited, have not disappeared before the improving hand of man. The remains are grouped together about the middle of the island, on its north-eastern side. Here there is a small sheltered port or harbour, and near it a spring of water termed Tobar Challum na Chille, or Columba's Well. Near the shore, S of this, in a sheltered grassy hollow, are the remains of the cemetery, with traces of graves of great age; and adjoining it a square enclosure, or small court, on the E of which are the remains of buildings of a domestic character. N of this is the church, a roofless building, formed of slates without mortar, and measuring 25 feet by 15. NE of this is a building resembling the cells appropriated to the abbots of these primitive monasteries. Farther off, on higher ground, are the remains of a kiln, and on a slope near the shore two beehive cells resembling those used by anchorites. 'See Appendix to Dr Reeves' Adamnan (Edinb. 1874), and vol. ii., pp. 78, 97, 128, 246, of Dr Skene's Celtic Scotland (Edinb. 1877).

Garvellachs through time

Garvellachs is now part of Argyll and Bute district. Click here for graphs and data of how Argyll and Bute has changed over two centuries. For statistics about Garvellachs itself, go to Units and Statistics.

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