Image Details
This is Loch Ewe on the North-west Scottish coast on a bright day in late Autumn. I had been in Gairloch for some reason that I can't recall now, and was en route home when this wonderful landscape came into view at one of my favourite viewpoints. At the time I was so pleased to be getting such excellent light that I didn't notice the way in which the clouds mirrored the land below them, giving the image similarities to a reflection.
Loch Ewe is a NATO base today, and during WWII it was a huge military base where the arctic convoys gathered before sailing with munitions to northern Russia, an endeavor which resulted in the deaths of many of those exposed to the dangers of German U-boats, not to mention the cruel arctic seas.
This photograph is taken from the site of the Convoy Anchorage Signal Station (CASS) which provided direct communications to the convoy commodores ship.
On the far left is the Cove/Inverasdale peninsula, and on the far right the Aultbea/Mellon Charles peninsula. The island, Isle of Ewe, in inhabited by several families. Children on the island travel back and forth each day in small boats for school, but in case bad weather prevents them getting home arrangements are made with families on the mainland to look after them until the weather improves.
North-west Highland Place Names
The landscape of the North-west Highlands and the Gaelic language are intimately connected. Other languages have contributed to the richness of our place names, notably Norse, but the North-west Highlands have for centuries been a Gaelic landscape. In listing the meanings of place names I have relied on authoritative sources wherever possible. For further information about sources please refer to North-west Highland Place Names in the main menu.
Aultbea; From Watson; In Gaelic it is an Fhàin - the gentle slope, locative case of am Fàn. The real Aultbea, Gaelic Allt-Beithe, ‘birch burn’ is the stream that runs through the village. The Aultbea coast in Gaelic is an t-Eirthire Donn, ‘the brown coast’. The Scottish Parliament website claims that an older Gaelic name for Aultbea was Am Fàn Braonach, meaning ‘the slope of the Loch Broom area’. Considering the distance between Aultbea and Loch Broom I find this an odd connection.
Cove; Gaelic, an Uaghaidh; the north part of Cove is Achadh na h-Uaghach meaning ‘Place of the Cave’ and ‘Field of the Cave’ respectively.
Gairloch; Gaelic, village named after the loch of the same name, Loch Gairloch, An Gearr-loch, the short loch.
Inverasdale; Village on the western shore of Loch Ewe. The following notes are by Professor Watson. In Gaelic it is Inbhir-asdal. A hybrid name; from Gaelic, inbhir, estuary; from Norse, aspi-dalr, Aspen-dale, from osp, the aspen tree. The old forms, together with the independent authority of Blaeu (a 16th century Dutch mapmaker), prove that the modern Gaelic is a contraction with compensatory lengthening of the vowel a.
Loch Ewe; Professor Watson said “that he had taken iu, with hesitation, from the Irish eo, thus ‘Loch of the yew tree’; the fact that Tobar na h-Iu in Nigg showed the article is practically decisive in favour of iu being there at least a Gaelic word. No Pictish name is accompanied by the Gaelic article. But the Ewe may be a Pictish name derived from the same root, or from a totally different one.”
Mellon Charles; Gaelic is Meallan Thearlaich, Charles’s Little Hill.
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