Island 461 - Longstone, Farne Islands

Longstone is the most easterly of the main islands that make up the Farne Islands.  The archipelago is located 6 miles to the north east of the town of Seahouses in Northumberland.  Longstone has no vegetation on it but it does have a very smart red and white stripy lighthouse.  Its main claim to fame is that it was once home to the Darling family. 

Grace Horsley Darling was born in her grandfather's cottage in Bamburgh on 24th November 1815.  She was the 7th of the nine children of William and Thomasin Darling. When Grace was three weeks old she was taken to live in the cottage next to the lighthouse on Brownsman, which is another of the Farne Islands.  William had worked as assistant to his father Robert, who was the lighthouse keeper on Brownsman but Robert died shortly before Grace was born and William succeeded him as the official Trinity House lighthouse keeper.

In 1825-6 a lighthouse was built on Longstone and the family moved to live in it.  They kept their garden on Brownsman to grow fresh fruit and vegetables, as there is no soil on Longstone.

Longstone lighthouse, which was originally called Outer Farne, was designed and built by Joseph Nelson. It has a 26 metre high a red and white circular tower built of rough stone with iron railings around the lantern gallery. The light was originally powered by Argand lamps with 12 burners.  It was electrified in 1952 and automated in September 1990.  It has a range of 18 nautical miles.  In 1942 the fog signal house on Longstone was destroyed by bombing.  In 1951 an accommodation block was built on the site of the fog signal house.  This now houses a small museum.

In the early hours of the morning of 7th September 1838 the steamer Forfarshire, which had been on its way from Hull to Dundee, was wrecked on Big Harcar (also known as Hawkers) Rocks during a gale.  43 of the 63 people on the boat were killed but when dawn broke at 4.45am Grace spotted  the wreck.  At 7am the Darlings spotted some survivors clinging to the rock. Grace and her father then set out in an open rowing boat known as a coble to see if they could rescue the survivors.   After rowing nearly a mile Grace and William reached Big Harcar.  William climbed on to the rock to assess the survivors, while Grace kept the coble steady.  Initially four men and a woman were successfully taken off the rock. Some of the men helped row the boat back to Longstone. William then returned with two of the survivors and rescued the remaining four men.  The survivors had to shelter at Longstone Lighthouse for another 3 days until the winds died down.  They were joined by 7 lifeboatmen from Seahouses who had rowed the 5 miles to Big Harcar, only to find that the only survivors had already been rescued by William and Grace.  They were unable to return home and sought refuge at Longstone.

Nine other men from the Forfarshire survived by getting into the ship's lifeboat.  They were picked up by a passing boat during the night. 

Grace became renowned as a heroine. She received several awards, including the Gold Medal of Bravery from the Royal Humane Society and a Silver Medal for Gallantry from the RNLI. People flocked to meet her, she had her portrait painted by several artists and she was invited to attend functions. Plays, songs and poems were written about her.  However in 1842 her health began to decline.  She was diagnosed with tuberculosis and she died in Bamburgh on 20th October 1842. 

Grace was buried in the churchyard of St Aidan's Church in Bamburgh.  A large canopied stone memorial in her honour was erected a few metres from her grave in 1844.  A life size figure of Grace with an oar at her side lies below the canopy.  The original sculpture was made of Portland Stone, which did not weather well and it had to be moved inside the church a few years later.  The replacement effigy was made of Northumberland stone, which is more durable.  Grace shares a grave with her mother (died 1848), father (died 1865) and her siblings Job and Thomasin.

Golden Gate Boat Trips, owned by George Shiel, is the only company licenced to land on Longstone and to offer tours inside the lighthouse.  There is an additional charge of £2 for a tour of the lighthouse.  It is the only island where dogs may land.  The main sailing months are April to October.  However the times and frequency of trips varies each day, due to tides and weather conditions.  The day I visited in September 2018 we only had about 35 minutes ashore on Longstone.  This was just about enough time for a quick look round the lighthouse and a quick walk around the island, which was very small, as it was almost high tide, so there wasn't much of the island above the water. In 2018 the adult boat fare was £15.  The whole boat trip lasts about 2 hours, as it also includes a tour of the other Farne Islands.  By September most of the nesting seabirds had departed but we saw cormorants and lots of grey seals.

Longstone Lighthouse at high tide

Longstone at high tide

Arriving at Longstone

The Golden Gate at Longstone

Trinity House notice on the door of Longstone Lighthouse

Plaque in Grace's bedroom at Longstone Lighthouse

Poster showing Grace's route to the rescue

Museum at Longstone

Not sure of the purpose of this building

Longstone Lighthouse at high tide

Longstone Lighthouse

Longstone Lighthouse

Longstone Lighthouse

Helipad on Longstone

Longstone Lighthouse from the helipad

The Golden Gate at Longstone

Longstone Lighthouse

 

View of Big Harcar Rock from Grace's bedroom window

 

Cottage and old lighthouse on Brownsman

 

Grace's canopied memorial in St Aidan's Churchyard, Bamburgh

 

The Darling's grave in St Aidan's Churchyard, Bamburgh

Island 460 - Lingeigh 2, North Uist

This was the second tidal island called Lingeigh that I had visited in the space of a couple of hours off the north coast of North Uist. This Lingeigh is much bigger than its neighbour to the south west.  It is roughly round in shape and about 800 metres in diameter.  It rises to a height of 33 metres above sea level.  It is a mile and half walk from the nearest car park at the cemetery at Hornais. 

The day I visited was a spring tide and it was low tide by the time I reached the island.  The strip of beach that joins Lingeigh to North Uist is only about 200 metres wide at its narrowest point and it doesn't dry out completely: there are some shallow channels of water and some areas of shallow standing water a few centimetres deep to cross. 

Lingeigh is covered in grass, which was ungrazed and therefore quite long.  Cotton grass, buttercups, cuckoo flowers, tormentil, bird's foot trefoil, white clover and silverweed were in flower when I visited.  There was a tern colony on an area of shingle beach about 200 metres to the north east of where I climbed onto the island.  I didn't disturb them.

I experienced an "it's a small world" moment on my return to my car after visiting Lingeigh: I was just taking my walking boots off when a car drew up alongside mine, the windows were opened and two people I recognised said hello.  They were a couple, who are birdwatchers, and who I had met in June 2017 while staying at the Bird Observatory on Fair Isle.

Approaching Lingeigh

 

Looking south west from Lingeigh towards North Uist

 

Looking north east up the south coast of Lingeigh

 

Not sure of the original purpose of this enclosure

 

Looking south east from Lingeigh to North Uist

 

North Uist from Lingeigh

 

Looking south from Lingeigh

 

 

Tern colony on a shingle beach

 

Farewell to Lingeigh

 

Lingeigh from Hornais

Island 459 - Orasaigh, North Uist

Orasaigh is a large uninhabited tidal island used for grazing cattle.  It is one of several tidal islands called Orasaigh or Oronsay, which I have visited, as the name means "tidal island" in Gaelic.  This Orasaigh is located off the north coast of North Uist half a mile north east of the village of Grenitote.  It is very roughly triangular in shape and is about a mile from north to south at its longest point and a mile from east to west at its widest point.  It rises to a height of 25 metres above sea level.  I only visited the south east corner of the island. 

I accessed the island by walking from the A865 at Cleit, north up the beach of Tràigh Athmòr and via the tidal islands of Lingeigh and Greanam.  It is about a mile walk each way.

Orasaigh was once inhabited, as there is a ruined cottage at the south end of the island.  It was also once linked to North Uist by a stone causeway, which was raised a foot or so above the beach level.  However this causeway is now broken in places and is no longer in use: the vehicles that visit Orasaigh take a route over the sand to the east of the old causeway.

When I visited in mid June 2018 orchids, silverweed, daisies, thrift, buttercups and bird's foot trefoil were all in flower.  There were some oystercatchers on the shoreline making their characteristic "peeping" noise and I could see cows grazing in a field in the middle of the island.

Looking south east over Greanam towards North Uist

 

Ruined cottage on Orasaigh

 

Looking north up the east coast of Orasaigh

 

Field entrance, Orasaigh

 

Looking north towards the ruined cottage on Orasaigh

 

Looking north towards Orasaigh from an unnamed island

An old, raised and no longer used causeway can clearly be seen linking this island to Orasaigh

Looking south down the old causeway from the unnamed island towards North Uist

 

Quad bike on its way to Orasaigh

 

Orchid in flower on Orasaigh

(possibly a northern marsh orchid?)

Island 458 - Greanam, North Uist

Greanam is a small low lying tidal island located to 200 metres to the north west of the neighbouring tidal island of Lingeigh and 200 metres north east of the coast of North Uist at Cleit.  The island is about 250 metres from east to west by 150 metres from north to south.

Greanam is covered in grass and obviously sometimes grazed by visiting sheep and cows, judging by their droppings, but there were none present when I visited.  Buttercups, daisies, bird's foot trefoil, thrift and clover were in flower when I visited on a sunny afternoon in mid June 2018.

Looking north to Greanam from an unnamed tidal island

 

Looking north east from Greanam

 

Looking north west to Orasaigh

 

Old cattle feeder on Greanam

Island 457 - Lingeigh 1, North Uist

Confusingly there are two tidal islands called Lingeigh within two miles of each other off the coast of North Uist.  This one is much smaller than its neighbour to the north east and it is closest to the area marked on the map as Cleit.  It is half a mile walk to Lingeigh across the strand of Tràigh Athmòr north from the A865.  I parked in a very long passing place on the main road, close to a slipway down to the beach, as there was nowhere else to park.  The sand was firm (on my way back I passed a man on a quad bike driving across it, presumably to check his livestock on the larger island of Orasaigh to the north).

I had tried to visit Lingeigh the previous day during Storm Hector.  Although it had stopped raining, it was still extremely windy: so windy in fact that wind had prevented the tide from going out and the beach of Tràigh Athmòr was still covered in water less than 2.5 hours before low tide.  I don't know if the water did eventually recede as it got closer to low tide, as I decided to come back the next day.  The following day the wind had dropped to a fresh breeze and just under 3 hours before low tide Tràigh Athmòr was clear of water, apart from a couple of shallow channels.

Lingeigh is about 200 metres long by 150 metres wide and low lying.  It is covered in grass and  is sometimes grazed by visiting cows and sheep, as they had left cow pats and droppings behind as evidence.  However there were no grazing animals when I visited on a sunny afternoon in mid June 2018.  Bird's foot trefoil, silverweed, tormentil, milkwort, cuckoo flower, thrift, irises and clover were all in flower.  There were a few gulls around.

North Uist from Lingeigh

 

Greanam from Lingeigh

 

Looking south towards Lingeigh with North Uist in the background