Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 1

ARPAFEILIE
at the village. The bay has not much capacity, and is
of half-moon outline ; yet is made by Sir Walter Scott
the rendezvous of the ships of the ' Lord of the Isles,' —
' Look, where beneath the castle grey,
His fleet unmoors from Aros Bay.'
Arpafeilie, a place in the Black Isle district of Ross-
shire. It has St John's Episcopal chapel (1816), and its
post-town is Fortrose, under Inverness.
Arran (Gael, 'lofty isle'), an island of Buteshire,
forming the southern and larger portion of that county.
It lies, like the rest of Buteshire, in the Firth of Clyde,
being bounded SW and NW by Kilbrannan Sound,
which separates it from Kintyre in Argyllshire ; NE by
the Sound of Bute, parting it from the Isle of Bute ; and
E and S by the main expanse of the Firth. Measuring
at the narrowest, its extreme points are 3 miles E of
Kintyre, 5| SW of the Isle of Bute, 9 J W by S of the
mainland of Ayrshire, and respectively 13 N and 30 N
by W of Ailsa Craig and Kirkholm Point at the mouth
of Loch Ryan. Its outline is that of an irregular ellipse,
little indented by bays or inlets, and extending length-
wise from N to S. Its greatest length is 19 J miles ; its
greatest breadth is lOf miles, contracting to 7i at a line
drawn westward from Brodick Bay ; and its area is about
165 square miles. Its W side and its N end communi-
cate with steamers plying between Greenock and Camp-
beltown ; its E side is regularly visited by steamers from
Greenock, both by way of Rothesay and by way of Mill-
port, and by steamers in connection with trains from
Glasgow at Ardrossan ; and its S end communicates with
steamers plying between Ayr and Campbeltown. Its N
end has a post office of Lochranza under Greenock ;
and its other parts have post offices of Arran, Corrie,
Brodick, Lanilash (money order, savings' bank, and
telegraph), Shiskine, and Kilmorie, under Ardrossan.
Its principal place of thoroughfare is Brodick, midway
along'the eastern coast, 14 miles WSW of Ardrossan, lih
SW of Millport, and 26 SSW of Rothesay; and its next
largest is Lamlash, on the same coast, 5-| miles farther
S. Its shores and surface are wonderfully picturesque,
exhibiting landscape in almost every style', from the
softly gentle to the sublimely terrible. The views of it,
in all directions, at any distance, either from the Clyde
itself or from its far extending screens, are very striking ;
the views within it, both on the seaboard and in the
interior, are endlessly diversified ; and the views from
it, specially from its higher central vantage grounds,
display the richest combinations of land and water, in-
tricate shore-lines, and grand mountain backgrounds. A
carriage road round it, generally near the shore, commands
no mean proportion of all the scenery ; but only wild
footpaths, or no paths at all, practicable by none but
mountaineers, lead up to the sublimest views among its
glens and mountains. Its geology, mineralogy, botany,
zoology, and even, in some degree, its angling and its
archaeology, likewise possess the highest attractions, and
have combined with its gorgeous scenery to draw to it
annually, since the era of steam navigation, great num-
bers of summer tourists. Much of its E coast, in par-
ticular, vies now with the most favourite seaside places
higher up the Firth as a summer retreat, not only to
families from Greenock and Glasgow, but to families
from the E of Scotland.
A flat belt of land, in form of a terrace, from 10 to 20
feet above the present tide-level, and from a few yards
to i mile broad, goes round all the shore ; consists of an
ancient sea-beach, common to all the banks of the Firth
of Clyde as far up as Dumbarton ; is bounded, on the
land side, by sea- worn cliffs, pierced in many parts with
caves or torn with fissures ; and is traversed, with a few
intervals, by the road round all the coast. The views
from this terrace inland are modified, from stage to
stage, by the structure of the interior ; sometimes are
blocked by lofty wall-like cliffs ; sometimes are overhung
by cloud-piercing mountain summits ; sometimes include
romantic features on the seaward side ; sometimes sweep
far into stupendous glens ; and sometimes open over
bays or over considerable expanses of low land. Chief
ARRAN
seaward cliffs, or other striking seaward features, are
Holy Isle, in the mouth of Lamlash Bay, rising tier
above tier to the altitude of 1030 feet ; Clauchlands
Hills, 2 miles N of Holy Isle, at the point of a penin-
sular tract eastward of the carnage road, rising 800 feet
from the shore, and pierced with caves ; the skirts of
Goatfell, 3$ miles N of Brodick, coming precipitously
down from alpine mural abutments, and terminating
in romantic cavernous cliffs ; the Fallen Rocks, on the
sea-face of an isolated mountain ridge, 5 miles NNW
of the Goatfell cliffs, only approachable by wary walk-
ing, and looking like an avalanche of shattered blocks
of rock rushing to the shore ; the Scriden Rocks, near
the northern extremity of the island, or 3 miles NW
of the Fallen Rocks, and presenting an appearance simi-
lar to theirs, but on a grander scale ; and the Struey
Rocks, at the southern extremity of the island, a short
way E of Lag, and consisting of a range of basaltic sea
cliffs, rising to the altitude of 400 feet, deeply cut by
vertical fissures, and pierced by a curious, long, wide
cavern, the Black Cave. The chief glens descending
to the coast are Glen Cloy, Glen Shurig, and Glen Rosie,
converging to a mountainous semi-amphitheatre, round
the head of Brodick Bay ; Glen Sannox, opening out
from behind the alpine buttresses of Goatfell, and pre-
eminently silent, sombre, stupendous, and impressive ;
Glen Ranza, commencing in precipices nearly 1000 feet
high, and descending about 4 miles to the head of Loch
Ranza, 2 miles SW of the Scriden Rocks ; Glen Catacol,
coming down from alpine central mountains, with itself
a romantic pastoral character, to a small bay, 2 miles
SSW of the mouth of Loch Ranza ; and Glen Iorsa,
descending S§ miles south-south-westward from grand
central mountains, joined on its right side by two long
ravines, and declining toward the coast, 9 miles S of the
mouth of Glen Catacol. The chief bays are Lamlash
Bay, measuring 2J miles across the mouth, occupied
more than one-half there by Holy Isle, and forming one
of the best harbours of refuge to be found anywhere in
Great Britain ; Brodick Bay, 2J miles across the mouth,
having a half-moon outline, and engirt by successively
a smooth beach, a sweep of plain, and the mountainous
semi-amphitheatre cloven by Glen Cloy, Glen Shurig,
and Glen Rosie ; Loch Ranza, at the mouth of Glen
Ranza, 7 furlongs long and 3| wide, with a pleasant
verdant peninsula projecting from its SW shore ; Mach-
rie Bay, southward from the mouth of Glen Iorsa, de-
scribing the segment of a circle 3J miles along the chord
and about 1 mile thence to the inmost shore ; Druma-
doon Bay at the S end of a range of cavernous cliffs
about 300 feet high, extending about 2 miles to it from
the S end of Machrie Bay, and forming itself a segmen-
tary indentation about 1 J mile along the chord ; and
Whiting Bay, separated on the S from Lamlash Bay only
by Kingscross Point, and forming a crescent 3 miles
across.
The northern half of the island is densely mountain-
ous. Its many summits look, in some views, like a
forest of peaks ; range in altitude from the Cock of
Arran, at the northern extremity, 1083 feet high, to the
top of Goatfell, 2 miles from the eastern shore, and 3
NNW of the head of Brodick Bay, 2866 feet high ; and
are interlocked or conjoined with one another at great
heights, by spurs and cross ridges. But the masses,
though all interconnected, are easily divisible into the
three groups of Goatfell, Cir Vohr or Mhor, and Ben
Varen or Bharrain. The Goatfell group rises so abruptly
and ruggedly from the E shore as to present a stern ap-
pearance from the sea ; has a bold ascent from the S,
yet in such gradients as permit it to be scaled without
difficulty by two paths leading up from Brodick ; starts
aloft on both the W and N in mural cliffs and tremen-
dous acclivities from encircling glens, yet projects high
spurs toward the adjacent Cir Vohr group on the W, in-
cluding a col or cross ridge, 1000 feet high ; and spreads
in its upper part into a kind of triangular tableau, with
divergencies eastward, southward, and westward. The
Cir Vohr group extends 7\ miles northward and south-
ward, at a distance of about 34 miles from the E
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