Our first visit of the day was to Bornais Machair which is one of the largest and most important Norse settlements in Scotland.
The settlement of Bornais consists of a complex of mounds which protrude from the relatively flat machair plain. The sandy plain has proved an attractive settlement from the Beaker period (around 2,500 B.C.E) onwards. It appears to have been intensely occupied from the late Bronze Age (1600-1200 B.C.E.) to the end of the Norse Period (1266).
Excavation has revealed structures dating from at least the second century AD and the settlement appears to have been continuously occupied up to the fourteenth or fifteenth century AD. Three substantial and two relatively insubstantial mounds are visible.
The principal focus in the Norse period was mound 2 where a large house or hall was found. This represents the home of an important Viking Lord and would have housed his family and large retinue of dependents. The principal features of the house were a large central area, where the hearths were lit, and a raised bench which surrounded it. Large quantities of tools, cooking vessels and ornaments were found scattered across the floor and these included a bone cylinder in the distinctive Norse Ringerike style.
It is thought that the other mounds were occupied between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries and were the location for families of lower status who lived in smaller dwellings. The large size of this settlement is unusual and suggests that it was an important centre for the communities of South Uist.
Large quantities of finds have been recovered and included many iron and bone tools and the remains of hundreds of broken pots. Important materials include coins and ceramics from southern England, a distinctive green marble from Greece, bronze pins from Ireland, soapstone from Shetland, ivory from Greenland, bone combs and other objects from Norway. Clearly the community was connected to other areas and was likely regularly visited by people moving along the west coast of Britain.
We then moved on to the cairn at Milton in remembrance of Flora MacDonald that has been erected by the Clan Macdonald.
Flora Macdonald is one of the most romantic characters in Scottish history due to her helping Bonnie Prince Charlie escape Scotland after the defeat of the Jacobites at the Battle of Culloden in 1746. The grandson of James II of England, Prince Charles Edward Stuart, had led the second Jacobite Uprising of 1745 to overthrow King George II.
The part that Flora played in the escape of Bonnie Prince Charlie ‘over the sea to Skye’ is immortalised in the “Skye Boat Song” published in 1884. After his defeat at the battle of Culloden Moor, Bonnie Prince Charlie was forced to flee for his life. After two months on the run, he arrived at South Uist where he met 24-year-old Flora. As both her stepfather and her fiancee, Allan Macdonald, were in the Hanovarian army of King George II, she would have seemed an unlikely ally. However after some initial hesitation, she agreed to help the Prince escape.
She managed to get permission from her stepfather, the commander of the local militia, to travel from Uist to the mainland accompanied by two servants and a crew of six boatman. The Prince was disguised as Betty Burke, an Irish spinning maid. They set sail in a small boat from Benbecula on 27 June 1746, not to the mainland but to Skye, landing at Kilmuir at what is today called Rudha Phrionnsa (Prince’s Point).
After hiding overnight in a cottage they made their way overland to Portree where the Prince was able to get a boat to the island of Raasy and from there to France. The Prince was said to have presented Flora with a locket containing his portrait. They never met again and the Prince died in Rome in 1788.
When news of the escape broke, Flora was arrested and imprisoned at Dunstaffnage Castle, Oban and then briefly in the Tower of London. She was released in 1747 and returned to Scotland.
But this was not the end of Flora’s adventures. In 1750 she married Allan MacDonald. Her fame was already spreading; in 1773 she was visited by the celebrated poet and critic Samuel Johnson. However, with her husband in debt, in 1774 the family emigrated to North Carolina with their elder children, leaving the younger ones behind in Scotland.
The MacDonalds arrived in the New World just as the American Revolution was brewing. Flora and her family, like many Highlanders, took the side of the British. Flora’s husband Allan joined a regiment of Royal Highland Emigrants but was captured at the battle of Moore’s Creek. Flora was forced into hiding while the American rebels destroyed the family plantation and she lost everything.
In 1779 Flora was persuaded to return with her daughter to Dunvegan Castle on the Isle of Skye. But her adventures continued. The ship she was travelling on was attacked by French privateers. This remarkable lady is said to have refused to go below during the fighting and was wounded in the arm.
On his release in 1783, her husband Allan followed her back to Scotland. Flora MacDonald died on 5 March 1790 and is buried at Kilmuir on Skye, her body supposedly wrapped in a sheet in which Bonnie Prince Charlie had slept.
South Uist was living up to the “four seasons in one day” reputation of the Outer Hebrides but, as we arrived at our accommodation, we did get a rainbow to end our day.
Words and photos: Copyright John Cruse 2025