Old Photographs Of Island Of Coll Inner Hebrides Scotland

Tour Scotland wee video of old photographs of the Isle of Coll, Scottish Gaelic: Cola, an island located west of the Isle of Mull in the Inner Hebrides. This Scottish island 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, 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, South Africa where he died unmarried. Breachacha Castle on the shore of Loch Breachacha on the Isle of Coll is a 15th century tower house that was a stronghold of the Clan Macleas of Coll, the island having been granted to John Maclean in 1431. This castle was superseded by a new dwelling in 1750 but continued to be occupied for a time, falling into a ruinous state only in the middle of the 19th century. The castle was restored to habitable condition only in the 1960s, by Major Neil V. MacLean Bristol and his wife Lavinia. John McLean, son of Julia and Hugh McLean; husband of Mary McLean, of 197, Weir St., Glasgow, who was born on Coll was drowned, as a result of an attack by an enemy submarine on 13-03-1918, age 47. He was Second Mate, Mercantile Marine, on the S.S. Tweed. All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.

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