 Skye flood - showing the gorge, exposed section of the graveyard, ruins of the bridge, the direction the current took, and the surrounded and partly ruined lodge. |
Reproduced from "Memorable Highland Floods" by D Nairne, 1895
The Skye Flood
THOUGH the weather which prevailed in the Highlands during October was boisterous and destructive, the damage done in other parts of the country was so trifling in comparison, that the deluge which occurred in October, 1877, will always be known as the Skye flood. It occurred on Sunday, the 13th October, and wrought by far the greatest havoc in the north part of the island, where the rivers drain into the western seaboard. For destructiveness, the flood was unprecedented in Skye, the descent of waters from the hills, where the rain cloud seems to have burst, being sudden and overwhelming. The Conan and the Hinnisdale thundered down in terrible volume, carrying away bridges like matchwood, obliterating crops, sweeping flocks of sheep into the sea, and entirely changing, in several places, the face of the country. At Uig, the ancient graveyard was carried away all but a small remnant, and hundreds of corpses, in all stages of decay, were scattered up and down the shore, or reburied under the debris, the result of landslips, which was carried down in hundreds of tons. Kilmuir Lodge, belonging to Captain Fraser, which stood on the shore of Uig Bay, was wrecked, and the manager, Mr Ferguson, perished in discharging what he considered to be his duty, having refused to leave the lodge to take care of itself in the peril which began to threaten it as the flood rapidly gained in dimensions.
The Scene at Uig
Writing a few days after the innundation, a Skye correspondent described the effects of the storm very graphically in the Advertiser. The Square at Portree, he says, was the scene of a great flood of water, which swept through it with such force aud to such a depth that those residing in that part of the village could not venture out of doors on Sunday. Further inland, sluggish streamlets became raging torrents, and the desolation they accomplished was almost incredible. Proceeding to Uig, one could not, he said, but be amazed at the wreck and ruin caused by what was usually an insignificant burn. "Close by the beach stood what had been the ancient-looking house known as Uig Lodge, the summer residence of the Laird of Kilmuir. No one would have dreamt that any other agency but fire could have effected such utter ruin. The miserable little river, in a fit of vile caprice, left its natural channel and went straight 'for' the lodge, carrying with it the bridge which spanned it, and rolling along huge boulders from nobody knows where ; right through the fields and plantations of fine timber, and obliterating every obstacle out of existence. The garden wall of the lodge disappeared ; not a trace of what the garden contained remained visible ; and a large part of the house was carried away from the very foundations. Not a thing was left whole; but the saddest incident of all was the fate of Mr David Ferguson, manager on the estate, who was buried in the ruins or carried out to sea and drowned. When remonstrated with by his family for his foolhardiness, Mr Ferguson said he must go down to the lodge, as it would not look well to leave the place to its fate and such danger threatening. Fatal resolve! Towards evening, his son became alarmed at the increasing violence of the flood, and resolved to effect a rescue, in which dangerous venture he was joined by the grieve on the farm and another friend. Before the three men got to the garden wall, the water was up to their waists, and soon after, one of them was carried off his feet by the strength of the current. The party shouted to attract the attention of the old man, but in that fearful uproar no wonder they failed to make their voices heard ; and, to save their own lives, the water being up to their chins, they were compelled to return and leave Ferguson to his fate. Next to the loss of this life, the most melancholy event was the carrying away almost entirely of the burying-ground in which, for centuries, were deposited the remains of the natives who had gone over to the majority. It was picturesquely situated; and the selection of the site shews that such calamities as floods of this character are not much known in Skye, wet as the Island gets the name of being. Among the rubbish and debris seen in what used to be the lodge garden, were naked bodies, coffins, skulls, and bones, winch had been washed out of God's acre - a horrid scene. As far as Greshomish, eight miles distant, bodies were picked up and reinterred, and far out at sea empty coffins were seen tossing about among the waves, with carcasses of sheep, as many as 250 of these animals having been swept off one farm. In the small part of the grave-yard which remained, tiers of bleached skeletons were to be seen, reposing as they had been placed, and presenting a ghastly sight to the passer by." There were a number of narrow escapes from the raging waters ; as, for instance, in the case of the minister of Stenscholl, who had to be rescued from the manse by means of a rope, amidst a scene of great excitement. It had been harvesting weather, and the grain crop in the north of the Island was mostly uncut, and, consequently, there was little of it left except in the form of battered and twisted straw. What survived, the poor people concerned endeavoured to make the most of; and not a few expended a great amount of labour in excavating their potatoes from the piles of earth and stones which the waters had deposited. Among the principle bridges destroyed were those across the Conan at Uig, the Hinnisdale, near Kingsburg, the Rha, at Uig, and at Guesto ; and the cost to the county in restoring these and repairing the roads was about £4000, not to mention the immense private losses sustained by rich and poor. Glenhinnisdale Bridge was a handsome one of 50 feet span, with a high embankment at either end, which stretched right across the valley. The impounded water, at this point, had risen to a perpendicular height of 15 feet 6 inches before the bridge gave way.
A Scientific View
At the December meeting of the Inverness Scientific Society and Field Club, Mr Alex. Ross, architect, now Provost of Inverness, read a short paper descriptive of the flood, principally from a geological point of view, and accompanied it by some drawings, one of which, shewing what remained of Kilmuir Lodge after the flood, we have, with his kind consent, reproduced. "Passing along to the head of the glen" (Uig) writes Mr Ross, "the effects of the recent flood began to be very apparent, the first indication being the deep cutting of the water courses, and the immense masses of the hillsides displaced. Coming near to the water-falls of the Conan, on the east side of the glen, I found long parallel cuts in the grass, like ditches, two or three feet wide, 20 or 30 feet long, and of infinite depth. These covered large areas, and it soon became evident that an extensive landslip had occurred, and that masses of the hillside had slid down towards the bottom of the valley. Passing into the bed of the burn, the scene was one of wild confusion ; thousands of tons of trap rock lay in wildest disorder, many of the masses weighing ten or fifteen tons each - all broken and tumbled. Trying to pass along this mass in the bed of the burn, I stepped on to what appeared a firm mass of bluish matter. I found it soft and slippery. Here was the secret of the landslips : the treacherous clay had yielded with the wet, and the overlying masses had fallen into the stream. On examing this clay, I found it impregnated with beautiful shells and fossils, but all too friable to carry away. I may mention that the valley in which I now stood was about a mile long and about a third of a mile broad, forming the base of an amphitheatre of hills rising to a height of 1000 to 1200 feet, and into which the whole rainfall of those hills rushed, the only outlet being a narrow gorge cut by the water. This gorge (see picture) is a narrow rocky ravine, of rugged aspect, and about 200 feet deep, down which the water of the Conan rushed, falling in their course over various waterfalls and rapids. Passing down the valley, the full effects of the flood could be seen. My attention was first attracted by several long scaurs on the hill-sides surrounding the valley. At points on which the rain-clouds seemed to have burst, the whole soil of the hill appeared to have slipped, leaving the bare face of the hill exposed. I should mention that so sudden had been the fall of rain and rise of the water in the glen, that the whole area of the valley must have been converted into a lake a mile or more in extent, the breadth of the glen, and four or five feet deep, as the moss sediment indicated. The small side burns had contributed their share to the destruction, and near the lower end of the Strath the poor crofters' crops of grain and potatoes were washed away, or covered to a depth of a couple of feet by masses of stones and debris, many of the former being a ton in weight, completely destroying the crops, and not only the crops but the land for future cultivation. Passing down the valley, I came to the gorge, where the scene was exceedingly wild. The sides of the ravine, where capable of plantation, had been beautifully planted and laid out, and a winding path had been carried along, where practicable, to give a view of the grand waterfalls and rapids. Sometimes on the sloping sides of the ravine, and often cut out of the rocky precipice, this path had in greater part been carried away. A short way down, we suddenly emerged on the plain of the Bay of Uig and here the full fury of the floods could be realised. Directly above us on the right were the remains of a sandy-looking bank, which, on closer inspection, proved to be the portion remaining of the old burying-ground, in parts of which we could detect pieces of the coffins ; and in the bed of the burn lay a tombstone, and beside it a coffin, the body partially revealed by the damage the coffin had sustained in its fall. I learned that only one-fourth of the burying-ground is left, the remainder having, with all the bodies, been carried out to sea. Close by the graveyard stood the bridge leading the public road across to Kilmuir. This bridge was swept away by the rush of water throngh the ravine, and with it about 100 feet of embankment and now exhibits a gap of about 200 feet wide. At this point the full destructive effect of the floods can best be seen. The waters rose till they filled the archway, and then undermining the bridge till it gave way, the pent up floods burst with their full strength on the plain below, hurling enormous quantities of debris down on to the flat of the bay. Overleaping its banks, the river cleared a new channel for itself, carrying the soil and crops of whole fields with it in its new course. The strength of the current would have been checked by the enclosure walls of the policies and gardens of Uig Lodge, but these formed but a slight obstruction to such a powerful body of water, and soon finding a gap in the wall which protected the grounds, it cast it down, and, forming a channel on either side of the lodge, it gradually cut them out to a depth of seven or eight feet, leaving the house as it were, on an island. Undercutting these banks, the fall of the house was the question of but a few minutes, with the lamentable results already stated. The scene was one long to be remembered - the whole valley one mass of debris ; fields covered with stones ; of the fine plantation by the river side not a trace, save one tree, remained ; while about the lodge the shrubs exhibited a curious crop of turnips. These had been washed against the trees, and there suspended at a height of four or five feet, giving singular evidence of the tide mark of the flood."
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Skye flood - showing the gorge, exposed section of the graveyard, ruins of the bridge, the direction the current took, and the surrounded and partly ruined lodge. |
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