A Sheiling On Visit To Isle Of Lewis Outer Hebrides Scotland

Tour Scotland travel video, with Scottish music, of a Sheiling on visit to the of Isle Of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. A shieling, Scottish Gaelic: àirigh, also spelt shealing and sheeling, is a stone dwelling, or hut, or collection of huts, once common in wild or lonely places in the hills and mountains and Islands of Scotland, and northern England. The term shieling is Scottish, originally denoting a summer dwelling on a seasonal pasture high in the hills, particularly for shepherds and later coming to mean a more substantial and permanent small farm building in stone. The first recorded use of the term is from 1568. The term is from shiel, from the Northern dialect Middle English forms schele or shale, probably akin to Old Frisian skul meaning hiding place and to Old Norse Skjol meaning 'shelter' and Skali meaning hut. Farmers and their families lived in shielings during the summer to have their livestock graze common land. Ruins of shielings are abundant in high or marginal land in Scotland and Northern England, along with place names containing shield or their Gaelic equivalents, with names such as Pollokshields in Glasgow, Arinagour on the island of Coll Galashiels in the Scottish Borders, and Shiels Brae near Bewcastle. Some were constructed of turf and tend to gradually erode and disappear but traces of stone built structures persist. The Lone Shieling, built in 1942 in Canada's Cape Breton Highlands National Park, is modelled on a Scottish bothran or shepherds' hut of the type that was used during the summer when it was possible to move the sheep up on to the hills to graze. It has the same design as the Lone Sheiling on the isle of Skye All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.

View the most recent Tour Scotland photographs.