A light on the past - a photo on Flickriver

            According to local tradition, the Gress Farmhouse was built on the site of a Norse castle.  This castle was called Caisteal Mor Voe, and the rise in the ground near this site was called Mullach Voe.  Tradition has preserved little factual information about this castle, but going by the amount of Norse names in the vicinity, Gress seems to have been one of their main settlements.

Neither history nor oral tradition discloses any information about Gress in the ensuing years, until it came into the possession of the Morrisons in the late 1500s.  The first recorded tenant was a Murdo Morrison.  He was dispossessed by the Earl of Seaforth when he took over the Isle of Lewis and the farm was then leased to the Macivers. In the late 1600ss, the Earl of Seaforth gave the lease of the tack of Gress to Evander Maciver of Tournach.  His descendant,  Lewis Maciver was the tacksman (farm manager) at Gress between 1820-1830s.  Maciver seems to have been a very arrogant an and his sub tenants at Back and Gress led an uncertain existence.  There was one occasion in 1822 when he evicted the tenants of Gress for no known reason, as they had already paid their rents.  

He once fought a duel with a customs official at Goathill Park in Stornoway in 1835,  This was the last duel to have taken place in Lewis.  The fight was stopped and declared a draw.

Following the death of Lewis Maciver in 1845, the tack was taken over by Mr Peter Liddle of Lanark.  It was passed on to his nephew, also Peter Liddle, who managed the farm until the tack of Gress was broken up into crofts after the land raids of 1919.  Peter Liddle retained the farmhouse and 5 acres of land, together with the old grain mill.  He kept the grain mill running for a number of years up to the beginning of WW2, when it was sold to an engineer from London, a Mr Webb, and it was subsequently used for war work during that conflict.  

Both the mill and the farm are now in a derelict state, but are both instantly recognisable features within the village and loved by both locals and visitors alike, as well as being very popular with the many photographers who visit the area.

Ancient buildings and ruins such as this are more than derelict monuments.  They are full of wisdom, for they have been suffused with all that they have seen and all that they have heard for hundreds of years, and despite the wreckage of their remains, they do not appear cold or forbidding.  They have an aesthetic and a grace warmed by the soul of their past and the ghostly whispers of those who walked within their walls.

Taken on: December 3, 2019

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Camera: Canon EOS 6D, f/11.0, 1/200 sec, 24mm, ISO 50 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Canon EOS 6D
Lens:	EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM
Aperture:	f/11.0
Exposure Time:	0.005 sec (1/200)
Focal Length:	24mm
ISO:	50
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Manual
Exposure Mode:	Manual
Metering Mode:	Center-weighted average
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic 8.4.1 (Windows)
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