County in Scotland
Argyll and Bute
A Scottish county with more inhabited islands than anywhere else in the country, a whirlpool that nearly drowned George Orwell, and the birthplace of television pioneer John Logie Baird.
Key information
- County
- Argyll and Bute
- Nation
- Scotland
- Population
- about 86,000 (2022 Census)
- Area
- about 6,900 square kilometres, much of it islands and sea lochs
- Known for
- Islay whisky, Iona, Fingal's Cave, Inveraray Castle, Tobermory's painted harbour, the Mull of Kintyre
- What locals are called
- Argyll folk, or islanders by island, such as Ileachs on Islay
- Famous people
- John Logie Baird, Saint Columba, George Orwell (who lived on Jura), Paul McCartney (Kintyre resident)
About Argyll and Bute
The coast of the Gaels, and the birth of Scotland
The Gaelic name, Earra-Ghàidheal, means the coast of the Gaels, and it is not an idle label. In the 6th century this was the heartland of Dál Riata, a kingdom that straddled the sea between Ireland and western Scotland. The Gaelic-speaking Scots who gave Scotland its name grew from here. The proof sits in Kilmartin Glen, one of the densest collections of prehistoric monuments in Britain: standing stones, burial cairns and carved rocks. Above it rises Dunadd, the hillfort where Dál Riata's kings are thought to have been inaugurated. Near the summit, a footprint is carved into the bare rock beside a basin. Visitors still put their foot in it. In 563 Saint Columba sailed from Ireland and settled on Iona, a tiny island off Mull. His monastery became one of the great centres of early Christianity in Britain, and Iona Abbey is still a place of pilgrimage.
A county of many islands
Argyll and Bute has more inhabited islands than any other part of Scotland, and the list reads like a Hebridean roll call: Mull, Islay, Jura, Bute, Iona, Coll, Tiree, Colonsay, Gigha and more. Mull's Tobermory is the postcard favourite, a row of brightly painted houses curving round the harbour. It became famous with a new generation of children when the CBeebies show Balamory was filmed there in the early 2000s. Calgary Bay on Mull also lent its name to Calgary in Alberta. Off Mull lies Staffa, a small uninhabited island made of hexagonal basalt columns. Fingal's Cave inside it so struck the composer Felix Mendelssohn, who visited in 1829, that he wrote his Hebrides Overture about it.
Whisky, whirlpools and Orwell's lonely farmhouse
Islay is the whisky island, home to the smoky, peaty malts of Laphroaig, Lagavulin and Ardbeg, along with Bowmore and others. Over on the Kintyre peninsula, Campbeltown was once so thick with distilleries that it styled itself the whisky capital of the world. Jura, Islay's neighbour, is a wild island with far more deer than people. In 1946 George Orwell moved to a remote farmhouse called Barnhill at its northern end and worked on Nineteen Eighty-Four there. In August 1947 a boat trip took him, his young son Richard and two others into the Corryvreckan whirlpool, the churning tidal race between Jura and Scarba. The boat's engine was lost, and they were rescued by a passing lobster fisherman. The Corryvreckan is still among the most powerful tidal whirlpools in Europe, and its roar can be heard from miles away.
Castles, towers and a canal
Inveraray Castle, on the shore of Loch Fyne, has been the seat of the Dukes of Argyll, chiefs of Clan Campbell, for centuries. Nearby, the grid of whitewashed streets in Inveraray town was planned in the 18th century as a model estate village. Oban, the gateway to the isles, has the odd, Colosseum-like McCaig's Tower on its hill. A local banker, John Stuart McCaig, had it built between 1897 and 1902, partly to give stonemasons work in hard times. Oban is also known for its fresh shellfish, landed daily on the pier, and for its distillery right in the town centre. The Crinan Canal, opened in 1801, cuts across the Kintyre isthmus. Its 15 locks over nine miles saved boats the long and often dangerous trip round the Mull of Kintyre.
From television to a Beatle's tune
John Logie Baird, who gave the world its first working television system, was born in Helensburgh in 1888. The town also has Charles Rennie Mackintosh's Hill House, one of his finest domestic designs. In 1977 Paul McCartney, who owns a farm on Kintyre, released Mull of Kintyre with his band Wings. It became the first UK single to sell more than two million copies, and bagpipes from the Campbeltown Pipe Band feature on the record. Dunoon is home to the Cowal Highland Gathering, one of the largest Highland games in the world, which draws pipe bands and dancers every August. Dunoon also hosted a US Navy submarine base on the Holy Loch from 1961 to 1992. On the Isle of Bute, Rothesay was once the favourite holiday resort of Glasgow families sailing 'doon the watter' on Clyde steamers.
Shinty country
Shinty, the fast and fierce Highland stick-and-ball game, thrives across Argyll. Oban Camanachd and Kyles Athletic of Tighnabruaich are among the best-known clubs, and both have strong records in the Camanachd Cup, shinty's equivalent of the FA Cup. On the plate, expect scallops, langoustines and oysters from the sea lochs, local venison, and a dram from a nearby distillery to follow.
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