Camas nan Geall - 1

Camas nan Geall is a hauntingly beautiful bay on the south shore of Ardnamurchan. Its name is translated as either the bay of the cell or church, or as the bay of strangers. Both suit it well, for it is undoubtably both a holy place and a place through which many people have passed, people who are forgotten, washed away by the tides of history.

For those of the Diary's readers who do not know it, the bay lies some seven miles to the east of Kilchoan, beside the only road which connects this remote area to modern civilisation (map here). It is a deep bay, protected on three sides by steep slopes, with a wide, gently-shelving sandy beach backed by good agricultural land. It looks south, across the mouth of Loch Sunart to Morvern. There are good views of it from both the Kilchoan-Salen road which runs high along the slope behind the bay, and from a convenient car park.

Other than an occasional visitor or one of the Ardnamurchan Estate workers, the land is deserted, yet there are plenty of signs of human habitation. Roofless and broken stone houses are clearly visible from the road, and anyone who is prepared to walk down the track to take a closer look is rewarded with evidence of some 6,000 years of human history.

This picture shows the agricultural land at the back of the bay. The oldest historic remains are at the left of the line of mature sycamore trees seen here, in the pale green area partly in the field and partly under the end tree.

Beneath the shade of the tree lie a pile of gigantic, flat boulders that are a Neolithic tomb. Most of the stones have fallen, so it is difficult to distinguish their original arrangement, but the grave is said to be of the Hebridean type, which consisted of rounded, roofed burial chambers connected to the outside by short, stone-lined passages.

The area around these stones is broken and raised above the level of the surrounding field - all of this, in summer, is covered in bracken. This may have been the extent of the mound which originally covered the tomb. Within it, to the left of the cairn and visible in this photo, there are the broken walls of what might have been a much more recent sheep byre.

The two large stones which formed the entrance to the passage are visible in this picture, one standing at centre, the other fallen to the right.

The chamber was roofed by the largest stone, which is seen, half fallen, in this view.

The cairn is evidence that Camas nan Geall must once supported a large enough population to have had an important chief, for whom they built the tomb.