Burg (Mull)
Burg is a remote area of around 1,480 acres on the Ardmeanach peninsula in the south-west of Mull, owned by the National Trust for Scotland. Once farmed by a small community, it is now a wild coastal reserve of cliffs, raised beaches and the ruins of old settlements, famous for MacCulloch’s Fossil Tree.
History
People farmed the narrow coastal shelf at Burg for centuries, and the remains of their houses and field systems survive, but like much of Mull the area was emptied in the 19th century as sheep farming replaced small tenancies. Burg is now a nature reserve within a National Scenic Area, home to golden and white-tailed eagles, wild goats and otters.
Visiting
The walk from the car park at Tiroran to MacCulloch’s Fossil Tree, an imprint of a tree engulfed by lava about 50 million years ago, is about eight kilometres each way along a rough coastal path, finishing with a descent by an iron ladder to the shore. It is one of the great walks of the Hebrides but needs good boots, time and attention to the tide.
About island abandoned villages
All abandoned villages →All over the islands of Britain and Ireland stand the roofless houses, overgrown fields and empty streets of villages whose people left. Some were cleared by landlords to make way for sheep, some emptied slowly as the young went to find work, and some, like St Kilda, were evacuated when life became too hard to…
