Isle of Arran

Isle of Arran
Location
OS grid reference:	NR950359
Names
Gaelic name:	Eilean Arainn
Norse name:	Herey
Meaning of name:	Brythonic for 'high place'
Area and Summit
Area:	43,201 ha
Area rank (Scottish islands):	7
Highest elevation:	Goat Fell 874 m
Population
Population (2001):	5,058
Population rank (inhabited Scottish islands):	6 out of 97
Main settlement:	Brodick
Groupings
Island Group:	Firth of Clyde
Local Authority:	North Ayrshire
References:	[1][2][3][4]

The Isle of Arran (Scots Gaelic: Eilean Arainn) is the largest island in the Firth of Clyde, Scotland, with an area of 430 km² (167 square miles). It is in the unitary council area of North Ayrshire. In the 2001 census it had a resident population of 5,058.

Arran is the seventh largest Scottish island and the ninth largest island surrounding Great Britain (excluding Ireland).

Arran is commonly lumped with the Hebrides, with which it shares many cultural and physical similarities, but in actual fact, the Hebrides start off the west coast of Kintyre.

Geography and geology

Sunset over Goat Fell

The island lies in the Firth of Clyde between Ayr and Kintyre. The main village on the island is Brodick (Old Norse: broad bay) to which the main ferry to the mainland connects. Brodick Castle is a seat of the Dukes of Hamilton. Arran has many mountains in the north. The highest of these is Goat Fell at 874 metres (2,867 feet). The north of the island has many raised beaches and tall sea cliffs. The island is sometimes referred to as "Scotland in miniature", as it is divided into "Highland" and "Lowland" areas by the Highland Boundary Fault which runs northeast to southwest across Scotland. The island is a popular destination for geologists, who come to see intrusive igneous landforms such as sills and dykes as well as sedimentary and metasedimentary rocks ranging in age from Precambrian to Mesozoic. Most of the interior of the northern half of the island is taken up by a large granite batholith, as seen in the satellite photo.

There are three main roads on the island; the coast road circumnavigates the island, while the String and the Ross both cut across the hilly interior at different points.

King's Cave is an example of an emergent landform. This cave is exposed above the present day sea level due to isostasy.^[5]

Satellite photo of Arran. The island to the east of Arran is Holy Isle and the tiny island - just visible - to the south of Arran is Pladda.

The peaks of north Arran seen over the isle of Bute from a farm in North Ayrshire.

Villages on Arran

• Auchencairn
• Balliekine
• Balmicheal
• Bennan
• Blackwaterfoot
• Brodick, the main village
• Catacol ("gully of the cat")
• Cladach Cladach was the first place on Arran to entertain tourists as they would come to take goat's milk at what is now the Wineport restaurant.^{[citation needed]} During the height of Victorian opulence and into the 1930s this hamlet was the service centre to the Castle.^{[citation needed]} It housed all the main functions of day to day life of an estate, there were stables (later a garage with a Studebaker), the laundry and the local courthouse.^{[citation needed]} Today there is a leather goods shop, the Arran Brewery and an outdoor shop.^{[citation needed]} It is the pedestrian entrance to the National Trust for Scotland gardens, Brodick Country Park and Brodick Castle and the main route to the island's highest peak, Goatfell.^[6]
• Cordon
• Corrie
• Corriecravie
• Corriegills
• Dippen
• Imachar
• Kildonan, the most southerly village
• Kilmory
• Kilpatrick
• Kingscross
• Knockenkelly
• Lagg
• Lamlash
• Largymore
• Largybeg
• Lochranza ("loch of the rowan trees")
• Machrie
• Margnaheglish
• Penrioch
• Pirnmill
• Sannox ("the sandy one")
• Shiskine
• Sliddery
• Strathwhillan
• Torbeg
• Tormore
• Whitefarland
• Whiting Bay

Islands surrounding Arran

Arran is a part of an Island group, comprising Arran, Bute, and Large Cumbrae, which are inhabited. Small Cumbrae, Inchmarnock and the Burnt islands are smaller uninhabited islands in the group.

Arran has three smaller satellite islands;

• Holy Isle lies to the east opposite Lamlash
• Pladda lies off Arran's south coast
• Tiny Hamilton Isle lies just off the Arran shore around 1.2 kilometres north of Holy Isle.

Eilean na h-Airde Baine off the south west of Arran at Corriecravie is more of a skerry than an island and, in any case, is connected to Arran at low tide.

History

Macrhie Moor Standing Stones

There are many stone circles and standing stones dating from neolithic times, including the standing stones on Machrie Moor and the Giant's Graves above Whiting Bay. St. Molio's Cave has wall carvings which are evidence of a rare Pictish script.

It is likely that along with Bute, Arran was once the home of a Brythonic speaking people. However, the Gaels spread to the island from their adjacent kingdom of Dál Riata and replaced the older language with their Goidelic tongue. Later the island, along with the vast majority of the Scottish islands, became the property of the Norwegian crown. As a result, many current place names on Arran are of Viking origin. Haakon IV of Norway visited the island in 1263 en route to the Battle of Largs.

St. Columba and St. Ninian are said to have stayed on Arran, and there are other Irish connections, e.g. a stone circle named Fingal's Cauldron. Nearby is the 34 metres deep King's Cave where Robert the Bruce is said to have taken shelter.

Transport

PS Waverley in front of Brodick Castle.

Arran is connected with the Scottish mainland by two Caledonian MacBrayne ferries:

• Brodick to Ardrossan, Ayrshire, from the east coast of the island.
• Lochranza to Claonaig, Argyll, from the north of the island.

A third ferry route connects Lamlash to neighbouring Holy Isle during summertime.

In summer the paddle steamer PS Waverley calls in at Brodick on regular cruises.

The island has a main road running around the coast, the A841.

Economy

Arran's location within Ayrshire

The main industry for the island is tourism, but farming and forestry are other important industries. Successful local businesses include:

• Arran Distillery, situated in Lochranza and built in 1995
• Arran Brewery, situated in Cladach, produces Arran Blonde beer, alongside other premium ales which are sold throughout the UK.
• Arran Aromatics, produces a range of toiletries on site which are sold throughout the UK.
• Auchrannie Resort, 2 hotels, 3 restaurants and 2 lesiure complex, one of biggest employers on island.
• Creelers, adjacent to Arran Aromatics, a seafood restaurant with locations in Arran and Edinburgh.

The main tourist spot on the island is the imposing Brodick Castle, owned by the National Trust for Scotland. Another interesting site is the twelve apostles of Catacol, a row of 12 small whitewashed cottages along the shoreline. The upper window facing the sea is different in each one. The theory behind this system was that the wife at home would be able to signal to her husband out fishing in the bay with a candle at the window. The husband would be able to identify who was being signalled by the shape of the window.

Notable residents

• Jack McConnell, Former First Minister of Scotland.
• Jackie Brambles, Broadcaster.
• Billy Connolly, Comedian - regular visitor.^{[citation needed]}
• Robert McLellan, Scots playwright and poet.

Trivia

• Brodick Castle features on the Royal Bank of Scotland £20 note
• Lochranza Castle was used as the model for the castle in the Tintin adventure The Black Island.
• There are 42 red post boxes on the Isle of Arran
• The Bishop of Sodor and Man refers to the sodor or southern isles, Arran being one, which used to belong to the bishop's see.
• The island has three endemic species of tree, the Arran Whitebeams which grow nowhere else in the World.^[7]
• The Scottish Gaelic dialect of Arran died out when the last speaker died in the 1970s. However, there is now a Gaelic House in Brodick, set up at the end of the 1990s
• The last force-fire in the Isle of Arran was about 1820.
• The knitting style used to create Aran sweaters is often mistakenly associated with the Isle of Arran rather than the Irish Aran Islands.^[8]
• Arran's local newspaper, The Arran Banner, was listed in the Guinness Book of Records in November 1984 under the ‘Newspaper Records’ section. Under the sub-heading of ‘Most read’ it was entered under the title of ‘local newspaper which achieves the closest to a saturation circulation in its area.’ The entry reads: ‘The Arran Banner, founded in 1974, has a readership of more than 97 per cent in Britain’s seventh largest off-shore island.’

References

1. ^ 2001 UK Census per List of islands of Scotland
2. ^ Haswell-Smith, Hamish. (2004) The Scottish Islands. Edinburgh. Canongate.
3. ^ Ordnance Survey
4. ^ Anderson, Joseph (Ed.) (1893) Orkneyinga Saga. Translated by Jón A. Hjaltalin & Gilbert Goudie. Edinburgh. James Thin and Mercat Press (1990 reprint). ISBN 0-901824-25-9
5. ^ Geology of Arran
6. ^ NTS Brocick Castle Retrieved 16 July 2007.
7. ^ Johnston, Ian. "Trees on Arran 'are a whole new species'", The Scotsman, 15 June 2007. Retrieved on 2007-06-18. 
8. ^ "Grail Trail", Daily Telegraph. Retrieved on 2007-08-03. 

External links

• Isle of Arran travel guide from Wikitravel
• Arran seen from space, NASA
• Isle of Arran Tour and Information
• The Isle of Arran Tourism Directory
• The Isle of Arran Heritage Museum
• The Arran Banner Arran's local newspaper

Coordinates: 55.57351° N 5.25333° W

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