COLL HOMES AND THEIR HISTORIES
-ONE OF AN OCCASIONAL SERIES-
Bayview, 1 High Street Arinagour
There is not a precise date for the building of the row of cottages called High Street that is set back from the Middle Pier. High Street and neighbouring Main Street were built round about 1814 when the laird, Alexander MacLean allowed cottars to build Arinagour Village and divided the lands into crofts for them.
Prior to that housing was of the vernacular tradition; stone dwellings with a fireplace in the middle of the floor, the smoke filtering through the thatch roof. These buildings were scattered sparsely and haphazardly. In 1776 only two families lived in what we now recognise as the metropolis of the island. (Island Pop. in 1755 was 1193, in 1793 it was 1041.)
By the beginning of the 19th century the population of the island was on upward swing again and Col. Alexander MacLean was anxious to hold the people on Coll. The fashion for planned villages reflected the spirit of improvement that landowners were keen to pursue. This placated their consciences; it also brought in more rent.
Would the islanders be vying with each other for placement in such novel accommodation? Imagine houses joined together in one long line! But no cattle allowed in the other half? No doubt some preferred their traditional homes. No one would have had any choice, the Factor deciding who would go where.
There is no record of the first inhabitants of No.1 High Street. Each cottage in fact sheltered two families, one on each side of the communal door. But this was luxury. A gable end fireplace and chimney for cooking and heating water. Sanitation? Best to draw a veil - or a bucket over that.
Originally the roofs were very low and thatched, subsequently they had tarred felting. Possibly High Street was built or improved a little later than Main Street. A photograph in Erskine Beveridge's Coll and Tiree (pub. 1903) shows Main Street with almost flat tarred roofing whereas High Street roofs have the contemporary pitch of today.
In the 1841/51/61 censuses many families are listed abiding in High Street, unfortunately with no house numbers; a tailor, a crofter, a widow and pauper, a servant who worked at Mibosd amongst others.
It is not until 1871 that 1 High Street details a Janet MacLean (nee MacInnes), 69, widow and housekeeper, living there with her son Donald, 31, a sailor.
Janet died in 1876 but not before her son married Christian MacLean, agricultural worker and spinster originally from Torastan. Chirsty, as she was known, already had an illegitimate son. The marriage was at Arnabost as was the birth of Neil one year later. Janet died there. She must have spent her latter years with her son and daughter-in-law vacating her side of 1 High Street to who knows?
No doubt many unrecorded souls float through the door of 1 High Street. But, interestingly, the 1881 census has Chirsty MacLean, widow, residing in her husband's old home with her two sons, John, a labourer, and Neil now six years old. Did Chirsty have rights or was it a coincidental vacancy? Or was it pillar to post just grateful for a roof over her head.?
She lived there until dying of pneumonia in 1907. It is also recorded that she was solely a Gaelic speaker whereas her two sons were bilingual. John stayed on, becoming a shepherd, paying the £1/10 shillings rent for half a house. He died in 1934 in No 3 High Street. His half brother, Neil, a seaman retired to 3 High Street until his death in 1943.
As the population dropped dramatically by the end of the 19th century one family would lease the whole cottage, which, by the 1930s had running water and the latest in sanitation - an outside WC. The roofs were red-painted asbestos. Whilst the improvements were carried out the inhabitants were evacuated in blocks to the Free Church Manse and the Teacher's House and Council Office (Church of Scotland Manse).
Inevitably the Estate put up rents. The people refused to pay and their water supply was cut off. The out come of this confrontation is not recorded but was obviously resolved.
Local memory has Annie 'Sheepla', 'a fierce old lady’ in No 1 High Street. The next tenant was Allan MacDonald, retired Collach and Glasgow potato salesman. His grandparents from Feislum way, his parents were Donald and Mary Mac Lean, No. 4 Main Street.
A very glamorous character now appears at the door of No 1 High Street - Mary 'London'. Could her forebears ever have envisaged what heights of sophistication her life would reach before coming home to nurse her ailing father, Allan MacDonald.
Mary, one of 9 children, has enigmatic beginnings. History has it that her birth was in Glasgow but there are no records to that effect. Her mother was a Mary Kelly ( which might explain the potatoes.) Her passport, found in Bayview when the Kellas's bought the property in the '70s states that she was born on the Isle of Coll, 29th September 1900.
Whatever the place of her birth, Mary certainly broke the pattern of her origins.
After a stint as a munitions worker during the First World War she became a 'Lady's Maid' and travelled the world with the rich and famous. The passport is full of immigration stamps from the decade of the '30s Calais, Le Havre, Aerodrome de Berck-sur-Mer, Port Bou, Egypt, Suez...
Imagine her outfits, her perfumes, the 'permanent' waves peeking out from cloche hats. Her soft West Coast accent in amongst the throatful of plums.
She accompanied amongst others, Mrs Gluckstein (several years to Egypt), Sir George (Isle of Rum) Bullough's daughter and Janet Beaverbrook, daughter of the newspaper magnate who was the second wife of the then Duke of Argyll. The story goes that Mary hid her mistress's jewels under the mattress many a time to deny the Duke's inveterate gambling habits.
London was where she spent most of her working life. Hence the affectionate (though possibly tinged with a tint of green) local nickname. She was a bit of a lady, some said... Mary remained a spinster all her days. Her father died in 1952. The funeral service held in the house that he had bought in the '50s when the Estate offered the High Stret and Main Street properties for sale. Prices ranged from £30 to £50. First time ownership brings with it, especially after generations of precarious tenancy, the splendid opportunity to give the possession a name. Thus it was Mary 'London' who called 1 High Street 'Bayview' - an English house name to be found all over the bays of the Hebrides.
When Mary died in 1982 her estate was left to a nephew, Bobby. The cottage was sold to the Kellas family, long visitors to the island. That was when odds and ends of Mary's memorabilia were found and cherished.
Sifting through old papers, cuttings, faded photographs of Morris Minor picnics by the side of Highland lochs and cruise ship Captain's table introductions (the fringed stole and pearls quite in class) there is an empty airmail envelope from New Zealand addressed to Mary at Bayview. Kept most likely for the three EllR Coronation stamps of 1953. But there is a name on the back; 'From Martin, clo Navy Office, Wellington.' Please don't say it was from a dutiful nephew... In 1900 Bayview became the property of Shirley and Neil Morrison. Long gone is the outside WC, gas lamps and the single cold water tap. Shirley and Neil have extended Bayview providing a spacious living room/kitchen looking out to the mouth of the bay.
Janet and Donald, Chirsty and her sons, Annie 'Sheepla', Allan, not to mention many un-named others and especially Mary 'London', would be proud to see their wee bit hearth and home still standing and cared for - a memorial to many generations and a record of unique Scottish domestic architecture.
(Indebted thanks to Betty MacDougall for census particulars; to David Kellas for access to Mary 'London's memorabilia; and to the wise of Carnan Road and Main Street. )
M.H.
