Discover

'Coll' is a small island (about 21 km long and 5 km wide) in the Scottish Inner Hebrides, west of Mull. It has a population of less than 200. The island has a small village, Arinagour, from which ferries operated by Caledonian MacBrayne sail to Scarinish on Tiree and to Oban on the mainland.^[4] (The normal journey from Oban on the mainland takes about two hours, but in stormy winter weather it can sometimes take much longer.)
Coll is known for its sandy beaches, which rise to form large sand dunes, for its corncrakes, and for two castles, both named Breachacha Castle. The older dates from the fifteenth century.
Coll was home to a branch of the Clan MacLean for 500 years, not all of which were peaceful. In 1590 the MacLeans of Duart invaded their cousins on Coll with the intention of taking the island for themselves. A battle was fought at Breachacha Castle where the Coll clan overwhelmed the Duarts and chopped off their heads and threw them in the stream which is still known as ‘the stream of the heads’. The Macleans of Coll retained their baronial fief and Castle of Breachacha until 1848 when Alexander Maclean of Coll emigrated to Natal where he died unmarried.
The population of Coll was much higher in the past; in the late 1700s there were about 1,000 people supported by agriculture and fishing. During the Highland Clearances of the 1830s and 1840s, most of the population left, many of them moving to Australia, Canada or South Africa.

★ There is an extensive RSPB reserve towards the west end of the island.^[5] One of the main attractions is that the rare corncrake can be seen in this area. Traditional local farming practices have helped this once common British bird to survive.

★ Coll is also home to Project Trust, a gap year organisation that sends school leavers abroad for a year's voluntary work, they send 17-19 year olds on a whole year abroad, and have extensive selection and training weeks.^[6]

Contents

Coll in fiction

See also

Notes

Coll in fiction

Mairi Hedderwick, the illustrator and author, once lived on Coll and has used the island as the setting her ''Katie Morag'' series of children's books. In the books, Coll is known as the fictional name of the Isle of Struay. ^[7]

See also

★ Religion of the Yellow Stick

Notes

1. 2001 UK Census per List of islands of Scotland
2. Haswell-Smith, Hamish. (2004) The Scottish Islands. Edinburgh. Canongate.
3. Ordnance Survey
4. Caledonian MacBrayne route information
5. RSBP Guide to Coll
6. Project Trust
7. Random House - Mairi Hedderwick