In 2022, photographer and history researcher Estelle Slegers Helsen wandered around Lochaber in the footsteps of W.S. Thomson MBE (1906-1967). Estelle took her photographic remakes roughly 70 years after Thomson originally captured the landscape and talked to local people along her journey. After a break over the summer, Estelle now continues her series, every fortnight, taking our readers to various places in Lochaber. This week, she focuses on Kilchoan (Cille Chòmhghain) with a view from Ormsaigbeg.
More than a year after my last visit to Ardnamurchan, I still vividly remember my search for Thomson’s black-and-white photograph, Kilchoan from the West,
published in Let’s See Ardgour and Ardnamurchan.
In June 2022, my tent is pitched in the heart of Ormsaigbeg, only half a mile from where Thomson took his photograph. Nevertheless, I drive up the road to Cuingleum at the end of the hamlet.
On my way, I have to wait patiently because a man in a bright yellow truck with a hydraulically-operated boom is repairing potholes in the single-track road.
After parking on a small vacant piece of land I climb up the hill through a maze
of old dry stone walls.
To my surprise, the rocks in the foreground of Thomson’s photograph are still there. Only one, on the far right, has tumbled down the hill.
A bright sun is shining on the lovely green, blue and brown colours. I count many more houses and sadly, the crofting landscape has disappeared.
Back at the Puffin Café on Pier Road, I meet Helen Sonachan to talk about the old photograph and the present-day view.
She identifies herself as indigenous, her family having lived in Ardnamurchan for generations.
“Most of the people who arrived in Ormsaigbeg came from Bourblaige, a settlement on the south-east flank of Ben Hiant, brutally cleared in 1828 by the Riddell Family, who
owned the peninsula.”
Originating from the Middle Ages, Ormsaigbeg clachan was situated uphill between the present-day Ferry Stores and Greadal Fhinn, a neolithic chambered cairn.
The hamlet consisted of about a dozen buildings, organised as a nucleated structure, and was abandoned entirely in the early 1800s.
In the 19th century, Sir James Riddell, 2nd Baronet of Ardnamurchan and Sunart,
created the new township of Ormsaigbeg at the southwest end of Kilchoan.
Helen explains: “The neatly separated Ormsaigbeg crofts ran in strips from the dry stone wall of the common grazings up the hills, down to the sea.
“It was – and still is – impoverished land. Only at the end close to the sea was the land
good for crops. A cow provided milk, and sheep were kept on the common grazings.
“Additionally, the tenants collected kelp for the phosphate industry and went out into the Sound of Mull to fish.
“The women and children worked the crofts. The men would have to go away
to work, to pay the rent.
“A lot of my family worked as railway porters in Glasgow. My great-grandfather and grandfather were sea captains on the Irish ships, ferrying between Glasgow and Dublin.
“Whenever possible, about every three months, they came home to work on the croft.”
After the Second World War, men who had fought received grants from the government to upgrade their low thatched houses by adding a second floor and corrugated roof, as you can see in Thomson’s photograph.
When he roamed the peninsula at the end of the 1940s, crofting was still the way of life
in Ormsaigbeg.
Helen continues: “In the 1940s and 1950s, most crofting people were still poor.
“That started to change when tourism came in the early 1960s.
“In May, the houses were cleaned out for the holidaymakers. We lived in the outhouse, which we called The Hut, until October. Then we returned to the house for the long winter.”
“In the 1980s, a lot of houses were abandoned. For the owners, their properties were seen as just cash.
“Blow-ins, people from outside Ardnamurchan, Lochaber and even Scotland started buying houses. They stayed in or rented out their properties for the summer months.
In winter, Kilchoan was deserted.
“The next thing to happen was that people bought houses as a business, sending prices sky high and local people couldn’t afford to buy them.
“Indigenous people still live in the village because of specific crofting legislation that has been in place since 1886, ensuring security of tenure, fair rents and
compensation for permanent improvements.”
Thomson’s black-and-white photograph and my remake span the whole length of Kilchoan, from nearly the last house in Ormsaigbeg to the last house on Pier Road, tucked in between the wide and shallow Kilchoan Bay and a part of the Ardnamurchan Ring Complex.
On my journeys to Kilchoan, I have noticed that indigenous people and blow-ins work together, creating a tight-knit community where most do their fair share of volunteering, helping to advance the community.
In the past, locals got used to working together, crofting being the backbone of their way to survive.
Even in 2023, the local community is prepared for times when they are cut off by landslides nearby and foot passengers-only ferry services.
- Travel in Time – Lochaber Series was supported by the West Highland
Museum and the Year of Stories 2022 Community Fund. Estelle has published a
64-page book with 30 side-by-side then-and-now pictures, which you can find
in local shops or buy online – www.travelintime.uk