A bit of ferry law

There's a nice book coming out today, "Scotland's Turntable Ferries" by Rob Beale and John Hendy:-

The cover photo shows the only remaining turntable ferry, the MV Glenachulish at the Glenelg side of her regular route, the Kylerhea Ferry

I heartily commend the book and what I think is so great about it is that, for the first time, all the knowledge on this subject has been gathered together in one volume. It deserves its place on any British coastal shipping enthusiast's bookshelf as an important work of reference and - as it's nicely written - as a good read as well.

This blog gets a mention in the bibliography which is very kind of Rob and John considering I'm not sure what I did to merit that beyond contribute a couple of images from my postcard collection. Anyway, I thought I'd take the opportunity to contribute here a bit of ferry law.

Strome Ferry on an 1850 Admiralty Chart

Rather like the right to fish for salmon, the right to run a ferry across a stretch of water (salt or fresh) belongs to the Crown. The Crown could (and very often did) grant that right in relation to a particular crossing out to one of its subjects. It often did this in conjuction with a grant of the land on one or both sides of the ferry. The Crown also frequently granted rights of ferry to be shared between the owners of the land on each side. It could also (though less commonly) grant the right of ferry to a third party who did not own any land on either side. Another variation on the theme was that a right of ferry previously granted by the Crown to the owner of one or both sides could be sold on to a third party who did not own land on either side. But the historic connection with land explains why rights of ferry were granted and transferred in the same way as land, by title deeds registered in the Register of Sasines (pronounced SAY-zeens: the register of deeds effecting land transactions in Scotland established in 1617). The owner(s) of the rights was obliged to operate the ferry at reasonable fares and usually achieved this by leasing the rights to someone who would operate the ferry and provide the boats. The rent payable would often take the form of a royalty of so much per passenger, horse, cart etc. carried.

Kyle of Lochalsh, 1990

Now this is all very dry and esoteric - does it have any practical relevance? Well it certainly did in April 1923 when the London, Midland and Scottish Railway Company (LMSR), as the owners of the railway to Kyle of Lochalsh and of the ferry rights across to Kyleakin, sued one Lachlan MacDonald, of "South of Obbe, Kyleakin", in the Sheriff Court at Portree for an interdict (Scottish law equivalent of an injunction) to prevent him:-

"from conveying passengers for hire by boat over the stretch of water between the village of Kyleakin in the parish of Strath and county of Inverness and the village known as Kyle of Lochalsh in the parish of Lochalsh and county of Ross and Cromarty, and bounded on the east and west by imaginary lines drawn between Castle Moil, Kyleakin, and the Railway Pier on the mainland, and between the King's Arms Hotel, Kyleakin, and a point on the mainland half a mile west of the Road Ferry Pier [sic] respectively, being the limits of the pursuers' [the plaintiffs' - i.e. the LMSR] right of ferry, or in any way interfering with the pursuers in the possession of their said right of ferry. …"

In layman's language, the LMSR claimed that, as the owners of the ferry rights across Kyle Akin, they were entitled to an interdict against Lachlan MacDonald preventing him from trespassing on these rights.

The limits of the interdict claimed by the LMSR in red with the line followed by the ferry right up until replaced by the Skye Bridge (on the right) in yellow.

In 1923, there were not yet any car ferries at Kyle and the ferry fleet consisted of two motor launches of about 30 feet length, the Kyle and the Skye. The Kyle was equipped with a fixed platform athwartships onto which a single car could be driven and there was also a small barge which could take a car and be towed across by one of the launches:-

Photo credit Sandy Stevenson

This not very sophisticated operation was leased by the LMSR to one John Clark, described in the court procedings as "motor engineer, Kyleakin". Unusually, the boats employed at Kyleakin belonged to the LMSR as landlord and owner of the ferry rights rather than Mr Clark as tenant and operator. Anyway, it was no doubt he who prodded his landlord, the railway company, into taking legal action against Lachlan Macdonald who was alleged to be running a motor boat across the Kyle in competition.

The following facts were also adduced by the LMSR in support of their claim: The Highland Railway Act 1893, which authorised the Highland Railway Company (merged with various other railway companies to form the LMSR in 1923) to build the line from Stromeferry to Kyle of Lochalsh, had also authorised the HR to purchase the ferry rights over Kyle Akin to Skye. This it had done, the transaction being completed by two deeds of conveyance, both duly registered in the Register of Sasines: one was by the curator bonis [administrator] for Lord Macdonald of inter alia "the right of ferry appertaining to the lands of Kyleakin" and the other by Sir Kenneth James Matheson, Bt., of Lochalsh on the mainland side. It thus appeared that, prior to its acquisition by the HR, the ferry over Kyle Akin was an example of one owned jointly by the landowners on either side.

Kyle Akin in 1854 before the railway reached Kyle. The inn marked at Kyleakin on the south side is the King's Arms claimed by the LMSR as the south westmost limit of their ferry rights. Admiralty Chart

The sheriff-substitute at Portree granted the LMSR an interim interdict and set the case down for trial. But the railway company wasn't satisfied with this - it considered that, as the defences to the action stated by Lachlan Macdonald were so totally untenable, it was entitled to an immediate permanent interdict without being put to the expense of an unnecessary trial. So the LMSR appealed to the sheriff in Inverness. He upheld the decision of his subsititute (deputy) in Portree whereupon the railway company appealed again to the Court of Session in Edinburgh.

Kyleakin in the 1920s - the motor launch Kyle with its thwartships platform for carrying a car is moored on the left.

Three judges heard the appeal, their role being to decide whether Macdonald had tabled legally stateable defences. His argument was twofold: (1) the LMSR had produced title deeds from Lord Macdonald and Matheson of Lochalsh but no evidence that these titles ultimately emanated from the Crown; and (2) a rather vaguely formulated defence to the effect that, irrespective of the niceties of their deeds, the LMSR's title to the ferry in any event did not exclude members of the public setting up rival services. The latter defence was in respect that Macdonald alleged that various third parties at various times over many years had, as a matter of fact, run ferry services over the Kyle - something the LMSR dismissed as "poaching by local boatmen at irregular intervals during the summer season".

Looking from Kyleakin across to Kyle of Lochalsh in the late 1920s

The Court of Session disposed of Macdonald's first defence in short order: where disputes over property are concerned, it's a well established principle of Scottish law that you're not allowed to pick holes in your opponent's title unless you yourself are claiming to have a better title. Here, Macdonald wasn't putting forward any kind of title to the ferry rights of Kyle Akin at all.

As regards Macdonald's second defence, the court dismissed this on the grounds that it was an absurdity - the suggestion that the LMSR had a title to the ferry but that didn't preclude third parties offering rival services is like saying you own your house but any Tom, Dick or Harry is nonetheless entitled to live there. And, if, as Macdonald alleged, Toms, Dicks and Harrys had from time to time offered rival services, then the fact the railway company hadn't taken action against them in the past didn't preclude them from doing so now.

Kyleakin around 1960 - note the ferry flies the yellow with red lion rampant houseflag of the Caledonian Steam Packet Company

As a law student in the early 1980s, I recall the case of LMSR v Macdonald being cited as an example of the law of trespass (rather than ferry rights) in action. Apart from busting the myth of there being no law of trespass in Scotland (of course there is!), I remember thinking how interesting there should have been a court case about a ferry I'd been across. (And while we're on the subject of ferries meeting education, I also remember once at primary school (circa. 1970) everyone in class had to come prepared with a place they'd been to to mark on a map of Scotland - my contribution was Kyleakin.) 

Anyway, having thus vindicated their legal rights in court, the subsequent history of the Kyle Akin ferry rights is that, in 1935, the LMSR leased them to MacBraynes for an annual rent of £150 plus a third of the net revenue. MacBraynes gave up the lease in 1945 whereupon the LMSR delegated operation of the ferry to its shipping subsidiary, the Caledonian Steam Packet Company Ltd. That remained the arrangement until the CSP Co. merged with MacBraynes in 1973 to form Caledonian MacBrayne who ran the ferry until 1995 when it was superseded by the Skye Bridge.

Loading the final generation of car ferry at Kyleakin in 1990

The question of ferry rights came back to the fore in the 1960s in the context of by-passing the Strome Ferry. The rights across Loch Carron were owned by the operators of the ferry, the Cumming family, and the question arose whether building a road round the loch would amount to an infringement of their rights just as surely as building a bridge over the narrows would? That's a very nice point of law to which I would not like to conjecture an answer but I would have expected Ross & Cromarty County Council to have resolved the issue by seeking statutory powers to buy out the ferry rights (compulsorily if necessary) in the same way as if they were a piece of land required for the construction of the road itself.

This time, I don't know the chapter and verse of the outcome but I do remember the issue raising its head on one of the many previous occasions when the road round Loch Carron was closed by a landslide. I recall reading in the West Highland Free Press about the possibility of the Council reinstating a temporary ferry service at Strome but it being pointed out on behalf of the Cumming family that they, as the owners of the ferry rights (albeit dormant for 30 or so years), were the only people entitled to carry anyone across the loch. (Or to put it another way, the Cummings would be expecting their palms to be crossed with silver by the Council for the privilege of opening a temporary ferry.) On that occasion the road was re-opened before the expedient of a temporary ferry was resorted to. I don't remember the issue raising its head when the ferry was famously reopened in early 2012 - perhaps the current generation of Cummings have forgotten about their latent rights or just judged it impolitic to intervene.

The Cummings' MV Strome Castle at Stromeferry in the early 60s

In the last 50 years or so, many new ferry routes (mostly car ferries) have been inaugurated where none existed before. But if it's the case that the right to operate a ferry anywhere belongs to the Crown unless/until that right for a particular crossing is granted to a subject, why did the Crown never object each time MacBraynes/the CSP/Calmac opened a new car ferry route in the 60s and 70s?

Perhaps as these operators were state owned, the notion of applying for a Crown Charter was seen as robbing Peter to pay Paul (although that argument wouldn't apply to the routes opened by Western Ferries). Or perhaps the whole subject of ferry rights was just too obscure for anyone seriously to bother about.

1964 - the first ever timetable for MacBraynes' new Craignure car ferry service 

As recently as the last month, Calmac announced a new route, Ardrossan to Campbeltown. And it's worth remembering that the body which holds residual Crown rights such as ferry rights is the Crown Estate. In the last 20-30 years, it has become very hawkish in exploiting its rights - think fish farms and moorings associations paying rent for their little patch of the sea bed (another asset of the Crown). The next big thing for the Crown Estate is offshore renewables (wind, tide). The CE does not show any favours to public bodies such as harbour trusts and I'm sure CMAL (the state owned company which owns most of the piers Calmac operates to) will have budgeted for the pound of flesh which has to go to the CE for the seabed footprint of its proposed new terminal at Brodick.

Bear in mind also that the Crown Estate is not devolved - even as regards its Scottish assets, the revenues go to London and it answers to Westminster. Therefore, might someone at the CE be blowing the dust off old legal case reports prior to dropping Calmac a line - much as I imagine someone at the LMSR did to Lachlan Macdonald in 1923?

                
Well, if I were instructed as senior counsel for the defender (Scottish legal term for "defendant") in Crown Estate Commissioners v Caledonian MacBrayne, there may be a crumb of comfort in the Kyle Akin case back in 1924.

One of the Court of Session judges, Lord Sands, gave a minority dissenting judgement putting a different spin on the law of ferry rights thus: instead of it being the case that the Crown owns the right to ferry people across all water between all points unless/until it grants that right out at specific crossings, the position is in fact that anyone can run a ferry between any two points unless/until the Crown grants someone a monopoly at a specific location. (Lord Sands conjectured that might have been the defence Lachlan Macdonald was attempting to propone against the LMSR but, as his counsel had not specifically articulated it in his pleadings, his case still fell to be dismissed.) If that is the law, it's hard to imagine, politically, the Crown Estate intervening to award a monopoly between Ardrossan and Campbeltown to anyone but Calmac. But whether "the Sands dictum" or the conventional view is the correct statement of the law of ferry rights, I don't know. I doubt if we'll ever find out either.

Strome Ferry

Cabuie Lodge (Loch Fannich)

I've always been fascinated by the changes to the landscape brought about by the North of Scotland Hydro Electricity Board's schemes in the 1940s and 50s.

The most obvious impacts were the dams and flooding of glens to create reservoirs; the power stations and the pylons. But of equal, if not more, interest to me are the more minor things like the rivers, roads and even railways that were diverted to make way for the rising waters. And the houses which were demolished, from shepherds' cottages to shooting lodges.

Picture reproduced by kind permission of Helen Murchison of Achintraid

Such was the fate of Cabuie Lodge, pictured above, which was demolished in about 1950 when the loch it stood at the head of, Loch Fannich in Wester Ross, was converted into a hydro-electric reservoir.

Despite the conversion, the site of the lodge and its associated estate buildings appear to have remained "high and dry" with piles of rubble representing their remains being still clearly visible on aerial photography:-

Below is Cabuie Lodge the OS 6 inch map of 1902:-

OS 6 inch Ross & Cromarty Sheet LX, Publication date: 1905; Date revised: 1902

It's interesting to compare with the earlier, 1875 6 inch map below which shows that the lodge hasn't been built yet - right enough, it does look to be of a late Victorian style of architecture:-

Ross-shire & Cromartyshire (Mainland), Sheet LX Survey date: 1875; Publication date: 1881

The chances are, therefore, if it was built around 1890 as the maps suggest, that Cabuie Lodge has now been gone for longer than it existed.

I was disappointed the Geograph website didn't have an up close ground level photo of the remains of Cabuie but it does have a good picture of the site at the head of the loch from up on the hillside to the south:-

Photo credit Andrew Spenceley

And a splendid picture of an old cast iron way marker to the lodge near the south shore of the loch - I've never seen one of these before:-

Picture credit John Allan

Meanwhile, half way along the north shore on a different estate, Fannich Lodge was high enough above the shoreline to survive the loch's "hydro-fication":-

Picture credit jwvdh

Ross & Cromarty Sheet LXXIII, Publication date: 1905; Date revised: 1902

Now, until recently, I have to confess to astonishing ignorance about hydro-electric reservoirs. I'd always assumed they just generated electricity from the pressure of water at the foot of the dam, thus:-

Laggan Dam - picture credit John Stewart

But if that were so, then why is there never a power station next to the dam? Hydro power stations are usually a few miles away from the reservoirs which supply them. And to judge from the Google Earth imagery, it looks as if the water level in Loch Fannich seldom, if ever reaches the dam so how does it ever generate electricity?:-

Fannich Dam - picture credit Hugh Venables

In fact, hydro-electric generation is not about how much water you can pile up behind a dam but rather a function of the vertical drop between the water and the turbine - the bigger the drop, the more the power. Thus, the ideal arrangement is for the power station (containing the turbine) to be in a neighbouring but lower glen and with the water being led to it through a tunnel like so:-

Apologies for that somewhat artless graphic but I hope it illustrates why the power station which generates electricity from the water in Loch Fannich is the one at Grudie Bridge, 3 miles (5 km) away, on the A832 between Garve and Achnasheen in neighbouring Strath Bran, some 500 feet (160 metres) below the level of Loch Fannich. The loch and the power station are connected by a tunnel for most of the distance and surface pipes down the side of the hill for the final 500 yards.

The RCAHMS entry for Grudie Power Station includes scans of the original 1940s architect drawings showing the thoughtful touches that went into these buildings including the Pictish bear motif above a window:-

But as well as the drop, it's still useful to have a large reservoir of water to make the descent and keep the turbine turning. That's what dams are really about - quantity rather than quality, as it were, in hydro-electric terms. In fact Loch Fannich is unusual in that its water level seldom reaches the dam (and hence why Cabuie Lodge perhaps didn't need to be demolished and its footprint remains visible.) But Fannich exemplifies another thing I hadn't properly realised about Scottish hydro reservoirs which is that they didn't just rely on the natural water catchment area of dammed lochs. In many cases, the Hydro Board artificially enlarged these by diverting the flow of rivers from adjacent catchments to help keep the reservoirs topped up.

Thus, in the case of Loch Fannich, it's natural catchment area is shown outlined in red on the map below. But the areas outlined in orange have been added by trapping streams which would otherwise have flowed off east and west and leading them through pipes (blue lines) back into Loch Fannich.

Below is a picture of the pipe which carries the water flowing off the west-most off the two orange areas east back to Loch Fannich instead of west to Loch Maree where it would naturally flow to:-

Picture credit John Allan

And next is a picture of one of the abstraction points where water from the east-most orange area (which would naturally have flowed down the River Grudie to the Conon) is trapped and sent back west through a pipe into Loch Fannich (visible in the background on the right).

Picture credit Hugh Venables

I'm sorry if this post digressed somewhat from a drowned shooting lodge into hydro-electrics, but I've driven past the Grudie Bridge Power Station more times than I care to remember without ever realising all the interesting stuff going on out of sight in the next glen.

I leave you with a fabulous picture looking west up Loch Fannich from Moray Mountaineering Club's website. Fannich Lodge is clearly visible on the opposite shore of the loch and the site of Cabuie Lodge is at the far top right end of the loch.

Little Garve Bridge (Wade, Caulfeild and the road to Ullapool)

Little Garve Bridge is something of a hidden treasure. Considering you can drive to (though not across) it and it's less than half a mile from a trunk road, I'm surprised it's not better known. I think it deserves one of these brown tourist attraction signs off the trunk road concerned - the A835 to Ullapool, just past Garve and the junction with the A832 west to Kyle of Lochalsh and Gairloch.

The bridge was built across the River Blackwater (a tributary of the Conon) in about 1762 by Major Caulfeild (that's not a typo - his name was spelt "e before i") as part of a military road from Contin to Poolewe which in the 18th century was the mainland "packet station" (ferry terminus) for Stornoway.

The name of General Wade is synonymous with military roads in the Highlands of Scotland but, in fact, Wade was only responsible for a minority of them. A much greater mileage was executed by his lesser known successor, Major Caulfeild. On the map below, the roads marked red are the Wade roads while the blue ones are Caulfeild's:-

Note that in this map I've mistakenly shown the road to Poolewe as beginning at Dingwall whereas I believe that, in fact, it began at Contin, about 6 miles west of Dingwall

The Wade Roads were built in the 1720s and 1730s. They were a response to the Jacobite Rebellions of 1715 and 1719 when the main theatre of war had been the Highlands but where there were simply no roads (or bridges) along which the army could be deployed to counter the Highland clans which formed the back-bone of the rebel forces. It's often said the principal beneficiary of Wade's roads were, in fact, the Jacobites who used them to move their army around the Highlands during the final rebellion of 1745-46 (Bonnie Prince Charlie, Battle of Culloden). But that didn't deter further military road building under Caulfeild in the 1740s, 50s and 60s.

As peace returned to the Highlands in the later 18th century, many of the less important military roads stopped being maintained. The Contin-Poolewe road seems to have been one of the last to be built and one of the earlier to be abandoned. It's certainly the most elusive in that Little Garve Bridge appears to be the only vestige of it that remains. I can't find the road marked on any map - not even Robert Campbell's "A new and correct map of Scotland or North Britain, with all the post and military roads" published 1790 (pictured above) - and I don't even know its exact route: did it go along the west or east side of Loch Maree, for example? (Note that the Campbell map shows a road along both sides!)

William Taylor in "The Military Roads in Scotland" goes so far as to say "Perhaps the only simple and certain fact about the [Contin-Poolewe] road is that, if it was ever made, it was not built by General Wade". The only other notice I've ever found of it is in "New Ways Through the Glens" by A R B Haldane: he records that the Countess of Seaforth, when travelling in 1799 between (presumably) her home at Brahan Castle (just east of Contin) and Poolewe for the packet (boat) to her husband's estates on Lewis, "could only get as far Loch Achanalt, fifteen miles from Contin, where her coach became a complete wreck".

I think the reason why Little Garve Bridge survived while the rest of the road decayed - although, once again, this is just educated guesswork - is that it was incorporated into a new road built in the mid 1790s at the behest of the British Fisheries Society to their new fishing village of Ullapool established in 1788. But this would only have reprieved the bridge for about 20 years because, when the Highland Roads and Bridges Commission (established in 1803) built its new road from Dingwall to Kyle of Lochalsh ("Kyle-Haken" as it was known then) in the 1810s, it bridged the River Blackwater 6 miles downstream from Little Garve at Contin and went along the south side of the Blackwater and Loch Garve, the route of the present day A835. Presumably, the military road on the north side (blue on the map below) was thereupon abandoned. 

It's worth noting that the original Ullapool road, built in the 1790s, went straight across the hills as shown roughly in red on the map above instead of following the Blackwater as today's A835 does. I'll conclude this post with a description of the old road in George & Peter Anderson's "Guide to the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, including Orkney and Zetland" published in 1842:-

The district road to Loch Broom, and the village of Ullapool on the shores of that loch, strikes off near Garve Inn, proceeding over the high ascent of the Dirie More. Its course may be seen for a mile or so, tending to the north-east of Loch Garve; and then it bends suddenly westward over a very long and bleak ascent, instead of keeping due north, along the Dirie Water [i.e. the River Blackwater] by Achnaclerach and the deer forest of Kirkan, through which it is now proposed to carry an amended line. The distance to Ullapool is about thirty-seven miles. This road was made about fifty years ago, at the expense of government, and cost about £4500, and it was then one of the best roads in the Highlands; but it has for many years been neglected, and is sadly broken down in innumerable places, so as to be passable only to foot passengers and horsemen It conducts across a dreary district called Strath Dirie and the Dirie More, (the long road or step) to the glen at the head of the larger Loch Broom. There are two very indifferent public-houses on the way, the first at Glascarnock, about twelve miles from Strathgarve, and the other at Braemore, a like distance from the former, at which also provisions are not always to be had; ... The mountain torrents which cross the Ullapool road are exceedingly annoying to travellers; and the largest one; the Torran-du river, a little beyond Glascarnock, is not always fordable with safety; but we are glad to hear that this shocking road will not be permitted to remain long in its present condition to disgrace the county of Ross and that the district trustees have at length fairly commenced building bridges, and improving the worst parts. ... At present no vehicle can pass it, and the only expeditious mode of travelling is by riding a country pony or garron. 

Fording the Torran-du (Abhainn an Torrain Duibh) in the 21st century

Aros Hotel (Salen Pier)

I have a list of topics to write about on this blog but all too often I find that, in the course of researching a post, I uncover other interesting stuff with the consequence that one topic gets crossed off the list but two have been added! This post attempts to cover two of these extra subjects at once and thereby try to re-establish a bit of equilibrium to the list!

Aros Hotel by George Washington Wilson

I found the photo above of the "Aros Hotel" in the George Washington Wilson archive. Aros is on the east coast of Mull, a couple of miles north of Salen but I found myself thinking "Aros Hotel? Never heard of such an establishment!"

My first thought was it must be the Salen Hotel under a previous name but although the two buildings are similar, the gables, dormers and chimney stacks don't match:-

Salen Hotel - built 1862

Therefore, I think GWW's "Aros Hotel" has to be what's today a private house called the White House of Aros just north of Aros Castle with an alteration to the left-most windows at ground and first floor level and the addition of a new wing on the left hand side:-

White House of Aros - compare the right hand end of this building with the GWW photo.

The identification of the Aros Hotel with the White House is suggested by the Ordnance Survey 6 inch map of 1875 which shows an inn on the site of the White House:-

OS 6 inch map, 1875

The footprint of the building marked as the inn is clearly smaller than that of either GWW's Aros Hotel or today's White House. I suspect it was just the rear (left) wing of the building in the GWW photo. Next, note how the 1897 edition of the 6 inch map shows a building with a much larger footprint which is no longer an inn but is now Aros Lodge. Note also that the pier just to the north is now "Old Pier":-

OS 6 inch map, 1897

note the old pier at top right

What I think happened - and this is no more than educated guess-work - is this: There was a pier with associated inn ("ferry house") at Rudha Ard Ealasaid at Aros established in the late 18th or early 19th century. This would have been one of the principal landings for Mull (especially for traffic crossing from Morvern) but the terminus was moved a mile south to the site of the present day pier at Salen at some point around 1875 (for the OS map of that year does show a pier at Salen). At the same time, the inn at Aros closed and was converted to a private house (and extended). The move was doubtless due to the trend towards piers that steamers could get alongside as opposed to waiting off for a ferry to come out from and perhaps the old pier at Rudha Ard Ealasaid was incapable of improvement. Many West Highland steamer piers were built or improved in the last quarter of the 19th century.

White House of Aros

There's a contemporary account of the Aros Inn in "A Descriptive Tour in Scotland" by the splendidly named Chauncy Townshend who travelled through the west of Scotland in the early 1830s in search, as was fashionable at the time, of places popularised by Sir Walter Scott. Having arrived at Tobermory by steamship (which Townshend snootily dismissed as "floating cake houses" packed with "tiresome tasteless mobs"), he and his companion resolved to continue their voyage to Staffa and Iona then north to Skye on a locally chartered sailing boat. But, as is so often the case, then and now, the weather conspired against the plan and, although they did manage to land on Staffa, the sailing trip had to be abandoned at Bunessan after a miserable two days and a night at sea. From Bunessan, they walked to Aros:- 

Another steep was yet to be surmounted before we reached the neat little inn of Aross [sic.] which looked quiet and comfortable in the moonlight and very inviting to weary travellers. It was now ten o' clock and we had been incessantly on the move since twelve, Henry only occasionally getting a lift on my steed and you know how wretchedly we had past the preceding night. Right glad therefore were we to hear we could be accommodated and to receive the warm welcome of a very model of a Boniface [archaic word for inn-keeper] who, bowing and smiling, showed us into a large room where three tourists were just preparing to take their tea. They had arrived like ourselves weary and hungry but a short time before. ... 

The servant girl here told us last night that, if we wished to go to Skye, the Maid of Ilay steamer would pass Aross at five in the morning, Did we wish to be called? The very thought of such a thing was horrible to us and we begged to be allowed to sleep as long and as late as we possibly could. The very mention of steam boats and voyages redoubled our qualms and made the carpet heave but the girl as if of malice prepense kept assuring us that ths Maid of Ilay was a very braw boat and almost seemed as anxious to speed us on our way as other folks at an inn are generally desirous to keep one stationary. ... The night before we left Aross, we began to think that the people of the house really meant to force us away by incivility. After ringing and ordering supper at least twenty times we gave up the matter in pure despair and at last actually went supperless to bed. The next morning the girl apologised for our having been so badly waited on and accounted for it by telling us that all the time we had been ringing and scolding, her mistress was bringing forth a man child into the world.

More recently, the White House of Aros (with associated estate (42ac/17ha), cottages and salmon fishing on the River Aros) was for sale through estate agents Savills during 2012 at offers over £1.5 million. I assume it must have been sold as it no longer appears on their website.

The picture above - and indeed all of the colour pictures of the White House in this post - are from the Savills sale brochure (which I have in pdf if anyone's interested to see). The vendor must have spent a lot of money on the house because I also have a copy of a brochure from when it was sold in the mid 90s and you can tell the agents then were really struggling to get a semi respectable photo of it!

Now, I began this post by saying I was going to cover two topics and you're maybe wondering by now what the second one is. It's the pier at Salen which replaced the one at Aros. The first Salen pier (seen above on the OS 25 inch map of 1877) was replaced in, I think, the early 20th century by the present one which is at 90 degrees clockwise to the first. But the stumps of the original pier are still clearly visible.

Picture credit kamai00 The White House of Aros is visible directly above the right-most post.

The respective positions of the previous and current piers at Salen. Note that the Bing Maps imagery has a distortion which suggests the bridge out to the berthing head of the current pier has a bend in it when, in fact, it's straight.

Salen was a port of call for MacBrayne's mail steamer which sailed every day from Tobermory to Oban with stops along the way at Drimnin, Lochaline, Craignure and Lismore as well as Salen. The vessel which operated this route from 1908 to 1955 (and intermittently thereafter until she was sold in 1960) was the MV Lochinvar. She is seen below departing from the second (current) Salen Pier in a postcard view dating, I think, from the 1930s:-

From 1955, the regular ship on the Sound of Mull mail service was the Lochearn and she is seen at Salen below:-

Photo credit Craig McDowall

Passenger sailings to Salen would have ceased in 1964 when the Sound of Mull mail service was replaced by the car ferry service from Oban to the new purpose built pier at Craignure. I'm guessing - but don't know - that Salen Pier was kept in commission to serve MacBrayne's cargo sailings but would have been abandoned when these ceased in 1976 (all cargo thereafter going on lorries on the car ferries). At all events, by the 2000s the pier had deteriorated to the point where its buildings had collapsed and it wasn't in much better shape than its predecessor:-

Salen Pier 2008 - picture credit littlebluetortoise

Hence, I was very pleasantly surprised to discover recently (and this is the point of the post) that Salen Pier has been refurbished and brought back into use. You can read about it on their website (which includes some historical photos). This has all, so far as I can tell, been privately funded with no public or lottery money involved. Calmac ships won't ever be calling again but fish farming well-boats can be expected.

loading salmon smolts - picture credit Bentalla

To draw the strands of this post to a close, our 1830s tourist, Chauncy Townshend, crossed from Aros to Lochaline after spending a couple of days at the inn. Of course, it's still possible to cross from Mull to Lochaline but not from Aros or even Salen but now from the slipway at Fishnish 5 miles to the east - the third generation of pier connecting this part of Mull to the mainland.

Fishnish slipway - photo credit Andrew Kesterton