Former chemistry teacher Harry Kelly of Glasgow was recorded in April 2000 talking to Dr John Holliday about the time he spent in the early 1960s as a volunteer at the excavation of the Iron Age broch at Vaul.
When his tent was washed out by rain soon after his arrival, Harry was offered lodgings by Catriona MacKinnon of Rhum View in Vaul. Catriona was a mine of information about life on Tiree in the 1930s.
Much to Harry’s surprise, she had made her own pottery from local clay and dyed cloth with lichens. In this clip, Harry talks about the method she used to make pots.
Folder with typewritten account `The Buildings of Tiree` by Geoffrey Stell, ca 1970.
Typewritten account `The Buildings of Tiree` by Geoffrey Stell typed on paper from publishers Gee & Co of the Strand, London, plus an accompanying map of Tiree hand-drawn by Mary Robertson.
Articles about WWII, the Coll hotel, emigration and immigrants, bulb growing, Highland dancing, archaeology, travellers to Coll, the White House of Grishipoll, the playgroup and parties.
Excavated by Dr Euan MacKie in the 1960s, the broch measures 9.2 metres in internal diameter with dry-stone walls up to 4.5 metres thick and was once probably 8 metres high. Built around the middle of the 1st century AD, the absence of a permanent central hearth suggests it was used originally as a temporary refuge.
The upper storeys of the broch were subsequently dismantled and a round-house, possibly an aisled wheel-house, may have been constructed in the interior. It housed a flourishing community engaged in mixed farming, iron-working and bronze-casting.
Radiocarbon dating of organic material indicates that the site was inhabited from the late 6th or 5th century BC to the 2nd or 3rd century AD, though perhaps not continuously.
Colour photograph of the interior of the Vaul broch in 2001.
The interior of the broch at Vaul photographed by Catriona Hunter in February 2001. Excavated by Dr Euan MacKie in the 1960s, the broch measures 9.2 m in internal diameter with dry-stone walls up to 4.5 m thick and once probably 8 m high. Built around the middle of the 1st century AD, the absence of a permanent central hearth suggests it was used originally as a temporary refuge. The upper storeys of the broch were subsequently dismantled and a round-house, possibly an aisled wheel-house, constructed in the interior. It housed a flourishing community engaged in mixed farming, iron-working and bronze-casting. Radiocarbon dating of organic material indicates that the site was inhabited from the late 6th or 5th century BC to the 2nd or 3rd century AD, though perhaps not continuously.
Newsletter of the Tiree Heritage Society `Friends of the Tiree Chapels`, No. 7, 17/8/2004.
News about the Gaelic version of the Pilgrimage Route Guidebook, the information boards for the chapels, broch, ringing stone and Soroby graveyard, the repairs to the bridges at the Kirkapol chapel site and Tobair Eachainn, funding and fund-raising.
Audio cassette recording of Hector MacPhail talking at the Scarinish Hotel in January 1998.
Hector MacPhail of Ruaig talks at the Scarinish Hotel on 31st January 1998 about emigration to Canada, New Zealand and Patagonia, the Duke of Argyll’s factors, the MacNiven family, cattle droves, smacks and schooners, the shops at Middleton and Hynish, three Tiree men who emigrated to Seattle, ancient graveyards, a school trip to Dundee, Captain Donald MacKinnon of the Taeping, the Downie family, emigration history at Inverary Archives, CalMac boats, the storms in 1953 and 1968, the emigrations of 1855 and 1877. (Continued on AC43)
Hector MacPhail of Ruaig tells the story of the first voyage of Iain MacArthur from Roisgeal in Caoles on his uncle’s sailing ship. He was made to turn out in foul weather to change sail and to sew up the bodies of his fellow crew members after a fever had gone round the boat.
Audio cassette recording of a talk `The Archaeology of Tiree` by Professor Steven Mithen in An Talla, Crossapol on 26/8/2004.
Talk ‘The Archaeology of Tiree’ given by Professor Steven Mithen of Reading University in An Talla in August 2004 and introduced by Dr John Holliday. Prof. Mithen talks about the earliest settlers in the Southern Hebrides around 6000BC, their probable lifestyle and tools, the traces they’ve left such as flints, bone tools, middens and charcoal deposits, the survey work the Reading team have been conducting on Tiree including ground penetrating radar and peat cores and the work they hope to do on Tiree in the future.
