A Vanished Dream of the McLeans

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 39, 15 February 1941, Page 18

A Vanished Dream of the McLeans

ON the way to Mull I caught the train to Oban, writes a New Zealand airman serving in Britain. This part of the trip was really enjoyable. The railway skirted many lochs and the hilltops were covered with snow. It was dark when I arrived at Oban, but I managed to find a comfortable hotel. The next day I got up for breakfast at 10 o'clock—it does not get light in that part of the world until well after 10 o'clock, ajid a couple of hours later I caught the boat for Mull. It is only a three-quarters of an hour trip to Mull, where I was landing, and a regular daily service is maintained. There are three ports in Mull, Craignure Bay, furthest south, Salen, and, in the north, Tobermory. I made for Craignure Bay as it was only five miles from Duart Castle, the object of my visit.

It was really quite impressive seeing the Castle for the first time. It looked just the same as in the old postcards, a gaunt ancient stronghold on a rocky point, barren of all vegetation, but with stringy turf. There was a jetty at Craignure, but the island steamer was of too deep a draft to berth there. A launch came off from the jetty to pick up passengers and cargo from the ship. We unloaded a few crates of beer—the islanders drink their whisky neat and chase it down with a bottle of beer —tins of kerosene for the lamps, groceries, and other supplies. Afterwards we passengers climbed in on top of the stores and so we were taken to the jetty.

Craignure Bay consists of a curve of rocky beach with the hills rising almost immediately behind. At the north end of the bay is its principal house, Java, once the home of a Scotsman who made his fortune in the East Indies. There are not more than half a dozen buildings in the whole bay, a rather desolate-looking spot when seen through the feeble light of a winter's afternoon. Opposite the jetty is the Craignure Inn, a low-built whitewashed building. The inn-keeper, a Mr. X.. was on the jetty, and when I asked

! him "if he could put me up for the night, he said he would see his wife about it. We walked over to the inn, and on the way I began to wonder if I had been wise in landing myself in" such an out-of-the-way spot without making proper arrangements. However, when we arrived at the inn my spirits revived for it was spotlessly clean and Mrs. X. said sh£ would get a room ready for me. In the meantime I walked over the hills towards Duart and returned just before supper. When I got back there were some men in the parlour drinking their

whisky and beer. I joined them and found that one, McLeod, was the caretaker of Duart Castle. He offered to show me over if I undertook the fivemile walk the next day. Nobody was living at the castle at the time.

Duart Castle was an absolute ruin in 1911, but in that year the chief of the McLean clan, Sir Fitzroy McLean, who had once vowed that a McLean would live in the castle again, purchased it and a section of land around it. Duart Castle had been lost to the McLeans since they took part in one of the rebellions against the King in

the eighteenth century. Thely were driven from their stronghold which w^s then held by the Campbells. Eventually the Campbells disappeared and the castle was left to go to ruin. The McLeans could not return there unless they paid £10,000 to the Crown as the price of their disaffection during the rebellion.

When Sir Fitzroy paid this amount in 1911, he set about rebuilding the castle as far as possible on its original lines. The work took about three years to complete and cost in the vicinity of £50,000. A McLean lived there again, and lived until 1936, when he died at the^ age of 102. But I doubt ifa McLean" will ever live there permanently again; the place is too dreary and gloomy. Though the castle was rebuilt, the outside walls are more or less intact, and they are pierced by narrow slits which served as windows and openings from which the armament of the time could be operated. Sir Fitzroy wanted the castle rebuilt as nearly as possible on its original lines, so the windows were not widened. l ' From the outside at least the Castle must look very much as it did when McLean of Duart owned nearly all of Mull. The castle has .no garden surrounding it. You approach it by a rough road, almost a track, and mount the steps at the front gate, the only door in the outside walls of the castle. This door opens into a small square courtyard in which the McLeans' cattle used to be driven when they were attacked. Facing the door is what was originally the chief's house, on its left is the keep and dungeons, and on the right the barracks where the chief's soldiers lived.

When he was rebuilding the castle Sir Fitzroy decided to build the kitchen in the keep. The workmen started to cut into the wall to.make a window facing into the courtyard. They hacked through sixteen feet of solid wall before they saw daylight. The kitchen was built in the hole originally made for the window, and a big kitchen it makes, too. In the castle there are all the usual rooms/banqueting hall, etc., and it contains I don't know how many flats for the use of relatives of the chief who may care to visit him in his stronghold. The flats are quite well fitted up, and centrally heated. They lack only one thing—light. Almost every room in the house has these small windows. It's hard to look out of them, especially where the walls are five or six feet thick, so that if you lived there for long you would begin to imagine that you were living in a dungeon.

There is only one ordinary staircase in the whole building, and that is only from the ground floor to the first floor. If you wish to get to any other part of the house you' have to climb up or down the stone spiral staircase. When Sir Fitzroy was getting very old, they had to get him out of the principal bedroom in case he should slip and fall down the spiral staircase which led from it. Old Sir Fitzroy gratified his wish in rebuilding the castle, but I think he could have spent his money in better ways. It takes a hundred tons of coal a year to keep the castle's heaters going, even though there is no one living there. They have to be kept going to keep out the damp. Even with the heaters on you can see the water coming through the old walls and starting to rot the flooring again. I don't think it will be many years before the castle falls into ruins once more.