In what may be the Society’s first-ever offshore excursion, fourteen members visited the tiny island of Iona for three nights at the beginning of September. This long-awaited trip had been booked at the St Columba Hotel in 2019 for September 2020 but had to be postponed due to lockdown last year.

Back Row: Ian Stewart, David Gillespie, Marjory Ross, Neil Hooper, Margaret Cleare, Chris Cleare, Nick Grant Front Row: Lesley Whitwood, Rosie Hooper, Fran Gillespie, Susan McDonald, Anne McFarlane, Ros Grant, Helen Stewart

One of the only two hotels on the island, the St Columba proved to be a very comfortable place to stay, with superb meals using locally-caught seafood and beef and lamb from a local farm.

Lesley Whitwood organised the three days with an ideal mixture of group activities and independent exploring. Some attended the services held nightly or in the morning by the Iona Community in the 12^th century Benedictine abbey, and as a group we visited the wonderfully restored abbey buildings which are still undergoing some refurbishment.

Included within the Abbey’s group of buildings is the recently updated museum with its wealth of superb carved Iona crosses, grave slabs of warriors, and objects uncovered during the many archaeological excavations that have taken place over the years.

Nine members accompanied Lesley one morning on a ‘long’ walk – the island is only three miles in length – to St Columba’s Bay on the south end of the island.

The walk took them . . .

This is where the charismatic saint is said to have landed from Ireland with his followers in 563AD and established a monastic community on the island.

Although almost no traces now remain on the island from the time of Columba, such was his influence that even today all visitors to Iona are very much aware of his presence.  

Not far from St. Columba’s Bay near the south-east corner of the island, but awkward to find, is Iona’s marble quarry with its long-abandoned rusting machinery including a gas engine with its supply tanks and a cutting frame. As is most of the island, the quarry is in the care of the National Trust for Scotland – the Abbey and the Nunnery are looked after by Historic Environment Scotland.

It was worked from medieval times to the early twentieth century and the marble’s distinctive green streaks made it a fashionable decorative material for the furnishing of churches and grand houses and its reputation for protective and healing powers made it popular for small ornaments and jewellery. The altar in the Iona Abbey was made from marble from this quarry.

On the way back to the hotel, some members of the BHS group – curiously, all female! – enjoyed taking a dip in the sea off the sandy beaches in the clear waters.

Iona’s beautiful beaches are a mixture of either smooth multi-coloured pebbles or long stretches of clean white sand. 

There were other rambles over the beautiful island scenery to Cobhan Cùilteach, known as the ‘Hermits Cell’, reputedly an isolated monk’s place of prayer in the central hills. There is a plausible suggestion that this may have been the ‘more remote place in the wilds’ to which St. Columba withdrew for prayer.

. . . and some climbed Iona’s highest hill, Dùn Ì.

Based on our three-night stay there and on photographs taken at the time, we have compiled a short video of many of the places that we visited. If you have never been to Iona, hopefully this may encourage you to visit this beautiful, spiritual island.

Text by Fran Gillespie, photographs provided by Lesley Whitwood and Ian Stewart