Island 244 - Ardwall Isle, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland

Ardwall Isle is a roundish tidal island half a mile north of Barlocco Isle and is another Island of Fleet, along with Barlocco Isle and the Murray Isles, which are half a mile to the north west of Ardwall and which are not accessible on foot except possibly at times of extremely low spring tides.  Ardwall Island is approximately 700 metres from north east to south west and 400 metres from north west to south east.  The highest point on the island is 34 metres above sea level.

Unlike neighbouring Barlocco Isle, the access to Ardwall is across muddy sand.  You have to open a gate to access the parking area opposite the island at Knockbrex and when I visited there were cattle grazing, whose favourite game seemed to be to stand in the middle of the road and refuse to move!  I parked my car under the curious gaze of the cows but they kept their distance, so I left the car and set off for Ardwall.  The sand turned out to be firmer than it looked and I took the absence of warning notices about soft mud or quicksand as a good sign.  The sand nearest the rocks at the island end turned out to be thick mud but away from the rocks it was fine to walk on.  The beach is composed of an orange tinged sand with crushed blue and mauve mussel shells and cockles and limpets.

It is about 400 metres to the island and there was a clear path leading up onto the island from the beach at the eastern end.  I don't know who owns or manages the island but some areas had obviously been mowed quite recently and some of the undergrowth had been cut back.  There is a ruined building towards the southern end of the island, which had an apple tree and a eucalyptus in its former garden.  I tried one of the apples - it was horrible!  To the south of the ruin is a house which was shut up but looked to be habitable.

The island is covered in grass, gorse, white and red fuchsia bushes, red campion, thistles, ragwort, nettles, bracken, brambles (more blackberries to eat), yarrow and thrift.  The undergrowth is impenetrable away from the paths, which got quite narrow towards the house.   There were a few full grown trees - some ash and a line of pine trees, possibly planted as a shelter belt.

The remains of a chapel are marked on the Ordnance Survey map at the north east end of the island but I couldn't see it.  The site was excavated in 1964-5 and from the photographs I have seen I think the remains were covered up again.  A cemetery was established on Ardwall in the 5th or 6th century and a stone chapel in the Irish style was built c700 on the site of an earlier wooden building.  A hall house was built on the same site c1250-1350 and then a tower c1780-1800.

As I was about to leave the island I looked across the sand and realised that my car was surrounded by 4 or 5 black cows.  When I got back to it I found they were busy licking all the windows and doors!  I have no idea what the attraction was but I managed to shoo them away.  As I did so I noticed that one of them wasn't a cow but a very large bull.  However he seemed quite placid.  The cows then got their revenge on me for interrupting their ritual by blocking the only track back to the road.  The bull then proceeded to get amorous with several of his ladies for 15 minutes right in front of me, although it all looked a bit half-hearted to me!  I tried driving right up to them and hooting gently but they just looked at me and refused to move.  In the end I reversed back and waited for them to move on, taking the opportunity to wash the slobber from all my car's windows!  In my experience cows don't stay in one place for all that long.  About 20 minutes later there was just enough space for me to drive through and I left.

The ruin with eucalyptus and apple tree

The house

The middle of the island
 

Path up onto the island at the north eastern end.

Ardwall Island from Knockbrex

 Murray Isles from Ardwall

 Mainland from Ardwall
- this is the main point of access onto the island

 Ardwall from Knockbrex