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Fact · North Uist

A linen millionaire built a mansion on a tidal island and dug up its past

A linen millionaire built a mansion on a tidal island and dug up its past
Photo Gordon Hatton, CC BY-SA 2.0

Erskine Beveridge, head of Dunfermline's biggest linen firm, built himself a mansion on Vallay, the tidal island off North Uist's north coast, and spent his summers excavating its archaeology. The house is a ruin; he is counted among the first archaeologists of the Hebrides.

Erskine Beveridge ran the largest linen manufacturer in Dunfermline, a company that was a world leader in fine linen. He also had a passion for the Hebrides. He bought Vallay, the tidal island off Sollas that can be reached on foot across the sands at low water, and built a large house there. From it he excavated many sites around Vallay dating from the first millennium BC to the first millennium AD, and published North Uist: Its Archaeology and Topography in 1911. He is regarded as one of the first and most significant archaeological excavators in the Outer Hebrides. The house is now a roofless ruin visible from the Sollas road.

Sources / notes: Wikipedia: Erskine Beveridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erskine_Beveridge Wikipedia: Vallay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vallay

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