Scotland

Glossary of Gaelic/English terms

General Introdiction

Historical Aspects

Introduction
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THE CAVES OF SOUTH WESTERN SCOTLAND

Dumfries-shire, Galloway, Kirkcudbrightshire & Wigtownshire

Wherever you go in south west Scotland, you cannot easily escape the past, for it is all around you, and the deep, ice-gouged valleys have supported man for perhaps 10,000 years, from the Old Stone Age onwards. This was the land of the Galwyddel [Welsh: Gaels meaning stranger], and they left faint clues for us to wonder at, age-old stones, burial cairns, forts and caves, relics of ancient religions and forgotten battles. They left us one of our names, too, for "Galloway" is derived from Galwyddel.

The first wanderers seem to have congregated around Luce Bay, settling along the 25 foot raised beach. They have left us flint knives and arrowheads, as well as marine molluscs in their caves and middens. By and large, these people of the Old Stone Age stayed on the shores, and in the river valleys, for they could not conquer the great hills clad in oak and Scots Pine.

Cave habitation extended well in Bronze and Iron Age times, and St Medan’s and St Ninian’s Caves were inhabited in the 8th century, whilst the most notorious inhabitant in the 16th century was Sawney Beane and his family. In the 1	9th century, any cave on or near the coast is a natural warehouse for `duty free’ goods. See also Smuggler’s Caves. Even in the early part of the 20th century, some of these caves were still inhabited cf Tinker’s or Tramp’s Caves.

Geology
GEOLOGICAL ASPECTS

Scotland is not noted for its caves. This is partly because most of the great watersheds are on non-carbonate rocks, and mainly due to of glaciations which covered the country during the ice age, scouring many of the softer rocks and infilling any pre-existing cave entrances. It is to the coast that we have to look today for the largest number and variety of caves. With over 10,000 miles of sea-shore which includes 758 islands, time and tide have eroded a variety of caves, caves which have been formed in most types of rock from the soft limestones of Durness to the hard gabbros and basalts of Skye.

The limestones of the north western highlands are all of the Cambrian age. The Cambrian or Durness limestone has been laid down in a thin band stretching for 120 miles south south west from Loch Eriboll to the Sleat of Skye. This outcrop varies in width from a mile to nearly 8 miles in the Assynt district. In the south of Scotland there are extensive beds of Carboniferous limestone, but these are too thin to support many caves.