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Taransay

General View

Site Name Taransay

Classification General View

Alternative Name(s) Tarasaigh

Canmore ID 270961

Site Number NB00SW 15

NGR NB 0300 0100

NGR Description Centred on NB 0300 0100

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/270961

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
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Administrative Areas

  • Council Western Isles
  • Parish Harris
  • Former Region Western Isles Islands Area
  • Former District Western Isles
  • Former County Inverness-shire

Recording Your Heritage Online

TARANSAY (Tarasaigh - off Harris) This rocky isle, four miles long, was described by Dean Monro in 1549 as 'well inhabit and manurit', and by Martin Martin in 1697 as 'very fruitful in corn and grass'. From the mid-19th century, when the villages of Raa, Paibil and Uidh were amalgamated as a single farm, the population declined. Most of the remaining community left in the early 1930s, and in 1974 the last family - the MacRaes - moved back to Harris. Uidh is the sandy isthmus connecting Aird Mhanais to the main part of the island, with the former tacksman's house and attendant steadings, in situ by 1841 , now a single-storey bothy (the slates having been removed to roof the original Tarbert kirk.) The site of the old clachan of Uidh lies further up the burn. On an islet (crannog) in Loch an Dùin, a small prehistoric dun with a stone causeway. From linking Loch Shinnadale, Allt a' Mhuilinn flows down through several lochans, with at least three horizontal cornmills along its course - one, Bun na Muilinn, with a wheel. A cart track follows it down to Paible, the main village overlooking a natural harbour, with a fertile valley seamed with lazybeds running back into the hills. Enclosed by a wall, two chapel ruins, each with its own graveyard: Teampall Chè and Eaglais Tarain (the former, dedicated to St. Keith, the traditional burial place of the men, the latter, dedicated to St. Tarran, where the women were laid to rest). Farmhouse and steading, 1901, built on a hillock behind the village for the Berneray farmer, John Campbell, now self catering accommodation, along with the schoolhouse on the eastern side of the bay, which closed in 1935. These buildings formed the nucleus of the settlement created here in 2000 for the TV programme Castaway. Northeast, on the shore by Sgeir Mhor, lies the former village of Raa, with ruins of longhouses, some over 60 ft in length, barns, byres and corn drying kilns.

Taken from "Western Seaboard: An Illustrated Architectural Guide", by Mary Miers, 2008. Published by the Rutland Press http://www.rias.org.uk

Archaeology Notes

NB00SW 15 centred on 0300 0100

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