When I left school in Lemreway in 1934, I got a job as a postman, delivering letters to thirty-two crofts in Lemreway, thirteen crofts in Orinsay and four crofts in Stiomreway.  This was a departure from the accepted custom as boys usually took a job in a fishing boat on leaving school.  There were plenty of opportunities, as there were nine boats fishing our of Lemreway at the time, all requiring a crew of five adults and a boy.  The boats left Lemreway on a Monday and were based in Stornoway until they returned the following Saturday morning.

Delivering the mail to Stiomreway was quite an arduous task.  It was over two miles from Orinsay over rough moorland and around lochs.  In those days, most of the mail comprised of catalogues and parcels from J. D. Williams and similar mail order firms.  The catalogues were often ordered for the girls in the Village by boys under pet names and I became quite expert at spotting the fakes and most of them found a resting place at the bottom of the loch about a mile out of Orinsay.  Stiomreway was eventually abandoned in 1941.

This occupation was only available when the regular postman was on holiday or ill.  Between times, I found work at one of the road building projects going on at the time and soon felt I was well on the way to becoming a millionaire.  With our newly earned wealth, five of us ordered brand new bicycles from – wait for it – J. D. Williams, of course.  They cost £5 each and we paid them up at ten shillings per week or 50p in to-day’s currency.  They were called ‘Flights’ and we were very proud of them.  We collected a few cuts and bruises before we mastered them, but we soon got the hang of them and felt very proud of ourselves riding to Church at Gravir on Sunday, scattering the rest of the congregation as we sped by on the four-mile journey.  I suppose we were as popular as the Red Arrows are to-day.

When the regular cook on my father’s boat took ill, I was recruited for the job.  We steamed up the Minch to the Butt of Lewis and set our fifty nets about 9 o’clock in the evening, cut the engines and let the boat drift on the tide.  Everybody slept except one man who kept watch, as there were hundred of boats and nets at sea at the same time.  There were six ‘hole in the wall’ bunks in the cabin, with two blankets and a pillow on each.  We slept fully clothed, except for our sea boots.

Though the Minch can be very beautiful in summer, there is always a swell and the rocking motion soon brought sleep.  Babies in Lewis at that time never had prams or cots and were rocked to sleep in a cradle, the more the baby cried, the more vigorous the cradle was rocked so it was never a problem for fishermen to sleep in turbulent seas when they had to.  The call to hit the deck came at midnight and I would approach the capstan bleary-eyed and semi-conscious to start hauling the heavy, thick tarred rope as the nets were hauled in.  Before starting, we took a cup of tea and a Ness biscuit.  Hard, Ness biscuits and the crews’ teeth must have been sound, for they were devoured very quickly.

As soon as I got down into the hold, the first thing I did was to empty my stomach, fresh Ness biscuits and all!  The pervading stench of tar, paraffin fumes from the engine room and rotten fish from the bilges all combined to envelop me in a cloud of nausea, so it was not an un-natural thing to do.  I was down there coiling for at least three hours and anything up to five if we had a fair catch.  By the time I got up to deck level, rising on the coil beneath my feet, I was ready to fall asleep from exhaustion and lack of fresh air, but a well-directed sea booted foot always persuaded me to stay alert and on the job.  How pleased I was to get back on deck and enjoy the fresh sea breeze, for I never experienced sea sickness while I was up on deck.

As soon as the nets were hauled in, we would build up a head of steam and set off for Stornoway with our catch and a hard day’s graft was just beginning.  The crew would start to clean the nets, while I scrubbed the tar off my hands and face before gutting and cleaning twelve herrings and setting them to the boil.  By the time we reached Stornoway, everyone would have been fed and I would be sent off to the fish market with a sample of our catch as soon as we tied up at the quay.  Another member of the crew would go and see what the price for a cran (four baskets) of herring was that day – it was usually around the £2 mark, rising and falling according to the amounts being landed.  When the catch was unloaded, the crew would turn in after mending the rips or tears in the nets.

While the rest of the crew slept away the afternoon, I had to go ashore and buy provisions and prepare the dinner on my return.  This was always soup, meat and potatoes followed by tea which was eaten before we set off in the late afternoon or early evening.  Most of the boys working as cook/coilers used to set aside a dozen herrings and when we got a chance, we sold them to the local people at a place called “Billingsgate” at the harbour wall.  On one of my first ventures there, my aunt, who stayed in Town, came on the scene and I sold her the lot for 1/6 (7 1/2p).  I didn’t know she was entitled to them free until I got a severe reprimand from my father for offending his sister.

My cousin and my father were both practical jokers and used to perform mischief on the sleeping bodies of other members of the crew.  It was not unusual to wake up with a moustache made with soot from the pans or a crab stuck down the front of your trousers.  One day, I got my own back and put a moustache and goatee beard on both my father and cousin while they slept.  One was laughing at the other as we sat around the cabin table later, neither knowing that the other was the same, while the rest of the crew never let on.  As they were both going ashore into the Town, I had to tell them eventually, but not before they were at a safe distance standing on the quay.

I served in a similar capacity on two or three other boats and the customs and lifestyles were very much the same – except one, which I took on in desperation.  The boy who was on before me only lasted a week and no wonder, for the crew were all a bunch of miserable people who were never satisfied with anything you did for them.  They wanted their herring fried in the morning – imagine!  It is not an easy job frying a herring straight out of the ocean and it was usually served to them in fragments like peas on a plate.  The skipper smoked about three yards of black twist tobacco every day and God help us if he ran out.  Once I remember sheltering from a gale in Scalpay and he sent me ashore to buy some black twist in the local shop, but they did not have any.  When I told him the news, he went into an uncontrollable rage.  A cook from one of the other boats was visiting when I broke the bad news and he, being older and wiser than me, told the skipper that Woodbines smoked two at a time would ease his craving.  I was sent back to the shop and soon returned with twelve packets of Woodbines.  There was method in my friend’s madness, for after smoking five cigarettes, the skipper realised they were no substitute for the real thing and discarded the other eleven packets to our mutual benefit.  Despite the storm, we had to let go and head for Tarbert – a Town with plenty of black twist.  It was blowing a force nine gale, but we made it!

While I was on that boat, I was very unhappy.  Nothing was allowed except by the book and there was no tolerance for mischief and fun, although many a time I felt like black polishing the lot of them.  I was with them for the summer season from May to September and was rewarded with a wage of £2 10/- (£2.50).  It’s doubtful if any of the crew earned more, as they were an unlucky lot and it was a good job for me that I had ‘Billingsgate’ to supplement my meagre earnings.

The history of the delivery of mail in Pairc is a story of considerable achievement by the handful of men and women whose determination, vigour and sense of purpose enabled their small, remote communities to receive the advances in communications offered by the Post Office in the second half of the last century.

The role of the redoubtable Ishbel Nicolson, Calbost, in pioneering the postal service in Lochs as it opened up new frontiers to reach more and more people stands out as a tribute to her resourcefulness, enterprise and ingenuity at a time when women were not generally expected or encouraged to play a prominent part in the day to day life of their communities.

Mail Deliveries in Pairc

Much more so than nowadays, women were left to tend to the family’s needs, rear children, manage livestock and perform some of the more burdensome and unpleasant tasks associated with the crofting way of life.

Ishbel, or Belle as she was known, was the daughter of Murdo Nicolson (Murchadh Dh’ol Thormoid), of Calbost, and she had gone over the Loch to Crossbost in the late eighteen sixties on her marriage to Kenneth MacKenzie (Coinneach Ledidh), 28 Crossbost, who had recently returned home from service with the Hudson Bay Company in Canada.  Over the Loch (null air a loch, or thall air a loch) were commonly used phrases of the day which have now fallen into disuse, signifying the close bond of friendship that existed between the inhabitants of the villages that existed on both sides of Loch Erisort and the harmonious social interchange that prevailed when only a short sea crossing separated them, compared with the long, winding stretch of road that served to isolate the communities from each other from the late nineteen twenties onwards.

The Post Office opened a branch in Stornoway in 1756, from where it administered a disbursement fund to finance the delivery and collection of mail in rural areas.  The first known postman in Lochs was Allan Ross who belonged to Crobeag and lived from 1803 to 1870.  Allan Ross was a schoolteacher at Keose before moving to Crossbost at the time of the disruption in the Church of Scotland in 1843.

He was an outstanding lay preacher in his day and he later became an office-bearer in the Free Church at Crossbost.  It is, perhaps, safe to assume that the School was founded by the Free Church, as its ruins may still be seen close to where the Church stands to-day.

Allan Ross’s son, Roderick, qualified as a doctor of medicine and established a practice at Valtos, Lochs, and later in Borve, Lewis.  On Allan Ross’ death in 1870, Belle acquired the portable box that symbolised her new status as a servant of the Crown as well as the contract to collect and deliver mails in North Lochs at a starting salary of two shillings and sixpence a week – twelve and a half pence in to-day’s currency.

The horse drawn gig which carried the mails passed down the Stornoway-Harris road and Belle met up with it at the Creagan Ban junction at Leurbost on Monday, Wednesday and Friday each week.  She walked all the way round her extensive territory and carried the mails in a creel on her back.

In 1883, Belle established the first regular mail delivery service to South Lochs by running a ferry across Loch Erisort from Crossbost to Cromore.  For the first eight years, the service operated over the summer months only, beginning in May and ending in October.  Meanwhile, her salary had increased to four shillings (20 pence) a week with a seasonal increment of one shilling (5 pence) and a further six shillings (30 pence) for running the ferry service to Cromore.  She delivered the mails on foot as far as Lemreway.

Belle continued in her dual role as postwoman in North Lochs and ferry operator to Cromore until the late 1880s, when her brother-in-law, Donald MacKenzie (Domhnall Alasdair, 1835-1912), of 19 Crossbost, took over the ferry service in her place.

He remained in the post until 1905 when he was succeeded by Bell’s son, Ebenezer (Abie), who kept up the family link with the run until he was called to serve in the First World War in 1914.  It then passed out of the hands of the immediate MacKenzie family for the first time when Murdo MacDonald (Murchadh Dhomhnaill Mhurchaidh), 29 Crossbost, became the ferryman and he kept the deliveries going until 1920 when Donald MacArthur (Dan), who opened a sub Post Office in Cromore in October 1912, started operating the service from the Cromore side of the Loch.  According to tradition, the ferry service was always people-friendly and it became commonplace to come and go between the two communities “air a phost“.

Kenneth MacKenzie (Coinneach Ledidh), Belle’s husband, had set up a sub Post Office in Crossbost in 1874 and Belle and all their children became proficient in the work and skills required to run a busy post and telegraph office.  Kenneth Mackenzie’s family had been evicted from Orinsay in 1843, having been earlier removed from Buthinish in Pairc to make way for the improvements sought by the landowner which led to the creation of the Pairc Sheep Farm.  At one time, the Post Office house at 28 Crossbost was named “Buthinish” in honour of their ancestral home.

Belle MacKenzie, who lived from 1845 until 1914, retired from full-time service with the Post Office in 1905.  She had given 35 years of service and had seen the regalia of her Office transformed from a portable box and a creel to a fitted out, modern Post Office complete with the telegraphic system of communications installed in November 1886.

Following her retirement, her son, Kenneth, became sub Postmaster.  He did not enjoy the best of health and as his condition worsened, his brother, John, responded to the family’s request to return home from service with the Militia in Fort George to help them run the service.  When Kenneth died in 1909, at the age of 32, John was appointed sub-Postmaster in his place at the age of 23.

John (Seonaidh Choinnich Ledidh), like the rest of the family, had been taught by his mother and father how to conduct the differing aspects of the job and had been helping with deliveries since the age of 11.  For a time, John continued to pick up the mails from the Stornoway gig at the Creagan Ban, Leurbost, but this run was later taken over by Danaidh MacKenzie (Crossbost) until the service was made redundant by the introduction of motorised deliveries from Stornoway to Crossbost in 1923.

John married Barbara Alasdair Ruaidh, of 24 Crossbost, and had a family of six daughters, all of whom were taught the mechanics and intricacies of operating the wide range of services that a community post office provided for its customers.

After 47 years of service, John retired in 1956 but sadly he died in the first year of his retirement at the age of 71 in 1957.  He had been held in great esteem by successive generations and it was not surprising that one of his daughters, Katie Ann, succeeded him on his retirement, giving up her job in London to return home and maintain the family’s long connection with the postal service.  Another sister, Mary (Mairi Bhan) was a regular standby and had staffed the counter many times over the years until her marriage to Murdo Livingstone and subsequent departure from the family home.

Katie Ann’s period as sub Postmistress came to an end after three years in 1959 when she emigrated to Vancouver, Canada, where she still lives.

The link with Calbost starting with her grandmother, was renewed when Katie Ann’s sister, Ishbel, was appointed sub Postmistress in 1959.  Ishbel had recently retired from a nursing career with H. M. Forces and had been decorated for meritorious service in several theatres of operations, including Trieste, Sicily and Korea.  Ishbel had married Donald MacLeod (Dan), formerly of 8 Calbost, and ran the Post Office in Crossbost until she died suddenly at work in November 1978.

Her death brought to an end a remarkable period of service by one family to the Post Office spanning a total of 108 years.  A span of years which saw many developments in the expansion of the postal services and even greater changes in the prosperity and lifestyle of the people it sought to serve.

Mrs. Muriel Morrison, 44 Crossbost, was appointed sub Postmistress in 1979 and the Post Office remains there to the present day.

In October 1912, Donald MacArthur (Dan) opened a sub post office in Cromore and started to operate the ferry service that brought the mails over from Crossbost on the other side of Loch Erisort.  He also undertook deliveries locally in Cromore until 1931.  The mails from the other villages in Southern Pairc were collected from Cromore by John MacLeod (Iain ‘an Choinnich) 3 Calbost, and he also delivered door to door throughout Marvig and Calbost.  There was a large, wooden box measuring 5 ft. by 3 ft. located at the end of his house which became known locally as the Post Office and which was used for storing postal material until it was collected by the authorised delivery men.  Donald Kennedy, 22 Lemreway, started collecting the mails for Gravir, Lemreway and Stiomreway from Calbost in 1912.  He was only 17 years of age at the time and made the entire journey on foot.  He dropped the Gravir mails at the sub Post Office at 19 Gravir and sorted out the remainder in a shed near croft number 20 Outend, Lemreway.  He then did the house to house deliveries in Lemreway.  After a year in the job, he left to join the Police Force in Glasgow and following training, he was assigned to patrol duties in the Gorbals district of the City.  He resigned from the Force at 12 months, returned to Lemreway and took up his duties where he left off the year before.  He was called up for service during the Great War in 1914, and spent 4 years with the Seaforth Highlanders before taking up his duties with the Post Office once again in 1918 when he was discharged at the end of the War.  Donald was now the proud owner of a horse and gig which made his journey less arduous as well as improving the efficiency of the postal service in the area.  Donald Kennedy continued in service until 1927 when the Post Office placed the contract for operating the service out to tender for the first time.  The contract was won by Malcolm Morrison (Calum Eachainn) 43 Gravir, and he also had a horse and gig on the run until the service was re-organised in October 1930, when the Royal Mail van deliveries started coming from Stornoway calling at Cromore, Marvig, Gravir and Lemreway.  The first driver on the run was Kenneth MacLean (Brand)

A large meeting of crofters, cottars and fishermen from the townships of Lemara, Gravir, Calbost, Marivig, and Cromore in the district of Park was held on the 15th inst. in the Cromore Schooolhouse. Captain Macfarlane, Marivig, was in the chair. The meeting was opened with prayer by the Rev. J. Macdougall. The Chairman, in an able and clear speech, stated that it was a well-known fact to them all that the Lewis District Committee have unanimously been of the opinion that the best way of making roads in the Park district was to construct a main road from Cromore to Gravir, with the intention of ultimately extending it to Lemara, with branches to Marivig on the left and Garyvard on the right. It was also stated that the District Committee were fully under the impression that they had the unanimous consent of the people in favour of the above route, until they heard from Colonel Gore-Booth recently that a numerously-signed petition had been sent out from certain townships against the route proposed by the Committee, and in favour of another route along the coast from Cromore and passing through Marivig and Calbost to the lower end of Gravir, and recommended by Captain Andrews as the result of his visit to the place last harvest. It was explained to the meeting that the main object of their being called there that day was to find out whether the petitions referred to by Colonel Gore-Booth were genuine or not.

Thereafter, adds our correspondent, a very lively discussion took place over the petition question, and the whole meeting seemed to be quite indignant over the whole business, as there was not a single individual known among them who knew anything about the document referred to by Colonel Gore-Booth in his letter to the District Committee. The following resolutions were moved, seconded, and unanimously carried:

1. Moved by Mr. Murdo Macleod, Cromore, and seconded by Mr. Malcolm Campbell, Marivig – “That this meeting desire to take this opportunity of expressing their unabated confidence in the Lewis District Committee, and hope they will do everything in their power to get the roads constructed in the district of Park on the original route proposed by themselves and pegged out sometime ago by the district surveyor.”

2. Moved by Mr. D. Campbell, and seconded by Mr. Kenneth Nicolson, Calbost – “That this meeting protests against the route recommended by Captain Andrews in that it is entirely against the wishes of the people that preference should be given to the route proposed by him (Captain Andrews) to the one proposed by the District Committee and agreed upon by the people; that this meeting further protest against constructing footpaths, but will bind themselves to fulfil their original promise to the District Committee if they will get roads of twelve feet under gravel, so that they will be in a positiion to use carts in the district as people do in other parts of the island.”

3. Moved by Mr. Murdo Matheson, Gravir, and seconded by Mr. D. Maclennan, Marivig – “That this meeting wishes to make known that after having made inquiries it has failed to get anyone in its townships who could give them any information whatever about the petitions referred to by Colonel Gore-Booth in his letter to the District Committee, and that it is pleased to hear that the Committee wrote to the Congested Districts Board for a copy of the petition sent to them.”

4. Moved by Mr. Norman Nicolson, Lemara, and seconded by Mr. Norman Morison, Marivig – “That this district will not be satisfied until roads are constructed in the following places, viz.: – (1) A main road from Cromore to Gravir and extended to Lemara, with branches from Marivig and Garyvard; (2) a road from the Cromore Schoolhouse to Marivig, and from Calbost to Gravir along the coast.”

5. Moved by Mr. J. Smith, Cromore, and seconded by Mr. Roderick Mackenzie, Marivig – “That copies of the above resolutions be sent to Mr. MacIver, their County Councillor, to the Congested District Board, and to the local papers, and that their County Councillor should be asked to write Colonel Gore-Booth for a copy of the petition sent to him.”

After a vote of thanks to the Chairman, the meeting was closed.

MacRath Mòr, ‘Big Macrae’, who was a physical and spiritual giant was a household name in Scotland in the latter half of the nineteenth century , having ministered at Cross (1833), Knockbain (1839), Greenock (1849), Lochs (1857) and Carloway (1866) before retiring to Stornoway in 1871 where he preached regularly after his retirement.

Lochs (Crossbost) at that time was a congregation of around 5000 people. There were no Free Church buildings at Kinloch or Pairc in these days and with roads being few and far between in what was a large and widely dispersed area. It was with this in mind that the people of Snizort in Skye presented Macrath Mór with a yacht, The Wild Duck which was sailed to Lewis by his good friend Rev Roderick Macleod of Snizort.

This is where Caversta comes to the fore. Because of its central location ‘Gob Chabharstaigh’ became a meeting place and whenever Rev Macrae was to preach there, people came by boat from Kinloch, North Lochs, Cromore and Marvig while those from Gravir, Lemreway and Orinsay came on foot.

It is very likely that the ‘tent’ or portable pulpit, at present in the museum at Gravir was used there and there is part of a wall at number 3 in an area known as ‘Tobair na Tent‘.

Macrath Mór’s wife was Penelope Mackenzie, daughter of Captain Thomas Mackenzie, tacksman at Bayble. She is buried in Eilean Chalum Chille where the inscription on her gravestone is still legible but Macrae himself was buried at Greenock.

Lemreway was one of the villages affected by the Park clearances. It was resettled in 1861 when those who were removed from Brollum to Stiemreway were in that year removed to Lemreway on the outskirts of the Park sheep farm. None of those who had originally been evicted from Lemreway in 1841 returned to it in 1861 except one man, a Macaulay from Crossbost. There are no Macaulays in Lemreway today but certain Nicolsons are descendants of the Macaulay mentioned. The population of the village is 150 persons normally at home and of those there are only four males between the ages of 18 and 30 years.

At one time the inhabitants of Lemreway and other neighbouring villages made visits to the Shiant Isles for puffins. The grounds of the Shiants is pockmarked with holes, the nesting place of the puffins, and the villagers used to bring home boatloads of dead birds which were valued for their feathers. They also enjoyed big pots of boiled puffins as a welcome change from their usual fish diet.

A day was chosen when there was a strong breeze blowing against the steep braes where the puffins nest and breed. The young men lay down on their backs on these slopes, holding up by the butts fishing rod lines of 9 or 10 foot in length. Holding them with both hands they whacked the puffins as they flew past them, quite low, in their hundreds. Whether the puffin was killed outright or merely stunned, it rolled down the steep slope to the shore or to the sea, and the rest of the crew were kept busy gathering bodies into the boat. The spreading of a herring net over the nesting ground was another method used. This custom has not been engaged in now for many a year.

There are a total of 46 houses (thatched 10, two rooms 2, three rooms 4, four rooms 23, five or more rooms 7.) One house has been built by government grant since 1918.  The school is attended by Lemreway and Orinsay children. There is a headmaster and one female assistant. The number on the roll is 35. In 1914 the number was 84. The West Coast Mission established a mission station in Lemreway shortly after 1900, and in 1938 the station was taken over by the Free Church, to which all the villagers belong.

The first headmaster was Donald MacIver (Domhnall Ruadh a Bhodaich Bhain), born in the parish of Uig in 1857. He left Lemreway in August, 1883 when he was appointed headmaster at Breasclete, where he remained for thirteen years. Following Breasclete he went to Bayble in 1896 and stayed there until his retirement in 1922. He is remembered today as the composer of the Gaelic song An Ataireachd Ard.

When Mr MacIver came to Lemreway he brought his sister, Margaret with him as housekeeper. His father, Am Bodach Ban, a retired teacher with the Gaelic School Society also joined them and became a leading member of the new Free Church at Gravir which opened on the first Tuesday of November 1882. Margaret later became the second wife of Kenneth MacMillan (Coinneach Dhonnachaidh). They were the parents of Angus MacMillan “The Hero of Buzancy” whose life story, written by his son the late Rev Kenneth MacMillan was published by the Historical Society in 1993.

June 7th. 1881

This school opened today for the first time by Donald MacIver, Certificated Teacher of the Third Class. The teacher after spending most of the day finding out the extent of the children’s attainments, find that the work in future will be very elementary.Of the 25 present only 12 know the alphabet properly, a few of these can read fairly number 2 and number 3 Royal Readers. Only 1 boy and 2 girls can write and the acquirements in arithmetic are equally backward.

February 20th. 1882

Opened school as usual but only 12 children came. Advised during the day by Dr. Ross to close school as Typhus seems to be raging in the district.

October 13th. 1882

Compulsory Officer was in school on Monday. He does nothing towards bettering the attendance of the school so that as far as I can see, he is, in his capacity quite useless. Everything assumes an air of indifference as far as school matters are concerned.

November 24th. 1882

I am sorry to understand that one of the pupils has died this week of the whooping cough. Had a visit on Thursday from Mrs Platt, Eishken Lodge, who was pleased to give two sewing prizes to the girls. This lady takes much interest in the industrial work of the school.

December 4th. 1882

“These certify that I am of the opinion that owing to an outbreak of measles at Lemreway, the Public School ought to be closed for a few weeks” Signed Rodk. Ross, Medical Officer for Lochs

“These certify that owing to the prevalence of whooping cough in the township of Lemreway (almost all the children being affected), I am of the opinion that the Public School in said village ought to be closed from this date till the epidemic subsides”
Signed Rodk. Ross, Medical Officer for Lochs

SCHOOL RE-OPENED 5th. January, 1883

May 16th. 1883

Of the 59 pupils on the roll a week or two ago, only 19 put in an appearance today. It is probable that not more than 2 or 3 of them will be present tomorrow.The work is over for the season; the weather is good and I can’t account for my school attendance.

June 15th. 1883

It should be remarked here that the sewing always depend on the quantity of material at sewing mistress’ disposal. Girls could never be got to take any stuff to school with them for sewing.

August 31st. 1883

School closes for 5 weeks holiday. Present teacher has bidden farewell to the scholars as he is about to leave to another school.

The nearby villages of Lemreway and Orinsay were cleared in 1843 to make room for “the tide of sheep” at Park Farm, under the tenancy of Walter Scott. Stiomreway was not cleared at the time, but was an isolated village inside the boundaries of the farm.

In 1857 the farm changed hands at the crofters at Stiomreway gave up their leases to settled at the deserted village of Lemreway. Some 20 families left Steimreway and took up 17 crofts at Lemreway; the remaining 14 were occupied by people from other parts of Pairc. The expansion of the farm to Stiomreway was the last such wave of sheep. When the farm became a deer park in 1886, Stiomreway and Orinsay were given to Roderick Martin, farmer at Crobeg, for grazing.

The village was, like Orinsay, schedule for resettlement under the Small Holders’ (Scotland) Act of 1911, but the Great War intervened. After the war, the new proprietor, Leverhulme, resisted the relotting of Stiomreway and other farms. Landless cottars, many returned from service overseas, prepared to raid the park. Leverhulme eventually withdrew his opposition and plans were made to resettle the village in 1922.

Five Calbost families were among those planning to move to Stiomreway but an accident at sea, while building materials were transported to Loch Shell, resulted in the death of two young settlers and all but one of the five families withdrew; only Donald Morrison, 9 Calbost, persisted. Four families from Lemreway also settled. These settlers were consider raiders, never recognised as crofters, and not in receipt of the usual financial assistance. Neither was there a road or footpath built to the village, and the school was four miles away at Lemreway.

The settlement lasted barely 20 years. By 1939 only the Morrisons and Carmichaels were left in Stiomreway; Donald Morrison, widowed during the war, was the last to leave.

Booklet available.

Stiomreway genealogy on Hebridean Connections.
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Leumra: This is the name used long ago by the old people. Some say to-day Leumrava. The terminal rà here has the same meaning as the second terminal và, a corner of land, an elbow. It does not mean bay. The loch is a fine harbour. It has a corner called Ard-an-eisg, where fish used to be landed, a rock suitable for landing, hladhamara, a landing rock; leur, mud, does not apply.

Lemreway was let by 1776 to a Stornoway merchant, Norman Macleod; by 1790 the tack has passed to his brother Murdo, and by 1795 to their cousin Kenneth Macleod. The Shiant Isles were originally included in this tack, and later it was combined with Steimreway.

At the time of the clearance of the village in 1843 in had a population of approximately 180. Three women were left in the cleared village of Lemreway, one of whom was known as Barbara Saxon (Barabara Shasannach).

Peter Sellar (son of Patrick, the efficient evictor of Sutherland tenants) was responsible for the clearance and the village remained cleared for fifteen years until a deal was made which resulted in the status of Lemreway being reversed. People were allowed to resettle in the village from the late 1850s, and many from Steimreway, cleared in 1857, also moved to Lemreway then.

The people who left moved mostly to Crossbost, some went to Glen Tolsta and of course some emigrated. The returning people came mostly from Balallan, Gravir, Marvig and one family, the Montgomeries, from Ranish. The families from Steimreway were Nicolson, Macmillan, Macinnes, Ferguson and a Donald Martin. Four families from Lemreway (Peter Chisholm No 9, Donald and John Nicolson No 16 and Donald Carmichael No 26) settled in Steimreway in 1922, though that settlement was short-lived.

The remains of the corn mill can be seen beside the stream down near the shore. Beside the mill are the remains of the kiln, used for drying grain. There was a shop at the shore run by Donald Kennedy, An Ceannaich. His predecessor John Macleod, Iain an t-Saoir, went to Canada but eventually returned to the Island and settled in Stornoway. Flora Nicolson had the next shop, next to #24.

A drifting mine exploded on the shore in 1941. The blast was so powerful that it blew in the windows of Peter Macinnes’s house, and five boats on the shore were also blown to matchsticks.

Families in Lemreway resided at the following crofts; these refer to the re-settlement.

Booklet available

Lemreway genealogy on Hebridean Connections.

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Calbost benefited from the interest of Angus “Ease” Macleod, native of the village, who recorded its history. The following is his introduction to the village.

The crofting village of Calbost in the Island of Lewis nestles round a fresh-water loch known as Loch-Dubh, which empties itself into the bay of Calbost, Camus Chalboist on the Minch coast of Lewis, about 9 miles by sea south of Stornoway but about 30 miles by road from the town, because the road winds its way round the long arm of sea known as Loch Erisort.

The village is situated within the Pairc or Park peninsula, which is the name given to that part of the Parish of Lochs situated in the South West corner of the Island, next to Harris. The peninsula is almost cut off from the rest of the island by two long arms of the sea, known as Loch Erisort to the north, and Loch Seaforth to the south, confining the land access to the peninsula to a narrow neck of land, a mile or two wide, between the villages of Balallan and Airidhabhruaich at the heads of these two long sea lochs.

The physical features of the area are a landscape of hills and valleys and numerous fresh-water lochs, as well as a coastline indented with many areas of seas, usually referred to as sea lochs, which, together with the fresh-water lochs in the area, gives the parish its name of Lochs. The peninsula extends to 68,000 acres.

Calbost is one of the last remaining ten villages that survived the ruthless clearances that followed the establishment of a commercial sheep farm, known as the Park sheep farm, which was set up at Valamus, at the southern tip of the peninsula about 1802. The names of the villages at present in the Park peninsula are; Habost, Kershader, Garyvard, Caversta, Cromore, Marvig, Calbost, Gravir, Lemreway and Orinsay. The last two were cleared but restored to crofting tenure later on. All ten villages are situated on the northern area of the peninsula.

Before the establishment of the Park sheep farm, there were over 40 small crofter communities occupying the whole of the Park peninsula from end to end.

In itself there is nothing unique about Calbost. The village is similar in all respects to the other villages of Lewis, except that it declined from a peak population of 2000 persons and a hive of activity at the beginning of the 20th century to complete depopulation at the passing of Donald Macleod, the last native resident in 1995 at the age of 93 years.

Thus, in the short space of a lifetime, a healthy, vigorous village declined and died. Many of the houses in the village are still in good repair and the casual visitor might pass along through the village without realising that it is a ghost township, the houses now only occupied temporarily from time to time by some of the former residents as holiday homes.

The decline of Calbost raises many questions, and most of them are applicable to all the villages in Park and other places in Lewis and elsewhere in the Highlands and Islands. The main reason for the decline of the village was the mismanagement of the land resources of the area as manifested by the agitation for Land Law Reform for most of the 100 years from 1851 to 1951, but more particularly during the land war years of the 1880s to the 1920s. The monopoly in land is the root cause of most human injustice and exploitation throughout history.

The numerous events of popular protest and agitation for land law reform by island crofters over long long periods seems to have received little attention compared to some of the other areas in the Highlands. This was due in part to the difficulty of travelling to, and within, the Outer Hebrides in the 19th Century. Press coverage and a written record of the land troubles are slight, except on the few occasions when issues were contested in a court of law.

There is plenty of visual evidence in the form of tumble-down ruins of former happy homes and traces of lazy bed cultivation all over the Park peninsula from where over 30 former crofter townships were forcibly removed in order to make room for the cheviot sheep, Na Caoraich Mhòra, of the Park sheep farm. The details of the families and communities are to a large extent lost, even although oral tradition in the area is still fairly strong. That demonstrates to us the value of recording all that is known about local history for the benefit of posterity.

Angus “Ease” Macleod MBE (1916-2002) collected over his lifetime an enormous archive of material and artefacts relating to Calbost in particular and Pairc, Lewis and the Hebrides in general. Many of the artefacts are now in the keeping of Museum nan Eilean, Stornoway.  The Angus Macleod Archive is housed at Ravenspoint, Kershader, Pairc, where visitors are welcome, and many of his documents are now available online.

Booklet available.

Calbost genealogy on Hebridean Connections.

Pictorial croft histories of Calbost in the Angus Macleod Archive.

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