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Beach Day
“There was such a shining of the sun and the sea, such a stir of the wind in the bent grass.”
~ Robert Louis Stevenson, Catriona, 1893
Scotland may be better known for mountains, moors and mist, but it also has some of the most beautiful beaches in the world. Along the western Highlands and islands, pale golden sands meet astonishingly clear waters of turquoise and blue. Elsewhere, long strands stretch beneath red sandstone cliffs, ruined castles and distant mountains. The light is constantly changing: clouds pass, colours deepen and fade, and a beach that appears silver beneath the morning mist may be glowing gold an hour later.
This sandy-coloured tartan was inspired by early-morning dog walks across just such deserted beaches, in those quiet hours when the tide has swept away the previous day’s footprints and the only marks in the sand have been left by birds, paws and the occasional determined walker.
The soft sandy ground of the tartan recalls a beach rippled with white as a fresh breeze sends fine flurries of dry sand skimming across its surface. Blue tones reflect the changing morning sky, as the cloud begins to thin, faint colour gathers above the horizon and the promise of a clear day slowly appears overhead.
Sandwood Bay, near Kinlochbervie in Sutherland, in the far northwest Highlands, cannot be reached by road; the beach appears only after a walk of about four miles across the moor. At the end lies a mile of almost empty Atlantic sand, backed by dunes and Sandwood Loch, with the great sea stack of Am Buachaille standing just offshore. Even the name belongs to this landscape. “Sandwood” is thought to come from the Old Norse Sandvatn, meaning “sandy lake”—originally the name of the loch lying quietly behind the dunes. 🤎 🤍 💙 🤎 🖤 🐚 🐚 🐚 🌅 👣 🐾
Scotland’s landscapes have long found their way into the work of its writers—not only its mountains, glens and moors, but also its long and varied coastline. For Robert Louis Stevenson, the seashore was especially important, providing both the remembered landscape of his childhood and the setting for adventure, danger and escape.
As a child, Stevenson spent summer holidays at North Berwick, walking and riding along the beaches of East Lothian. The broad sands, bent grass, offshore islands and changing light remained with him, later appearing in Catriona, The Pavilion on the Links, The Lantern-Bearers and his poetry.
In Catriona, the coast between North Berwick and Gullane is described with the familiarity of a remembered landscape. Berwick Law, Dirleton and Fidra are all recognisable, while the dunes and long open beach become part of the adventure. Sandhills conceal pursuers, a ship waits offshore and an apparently deserted coast is alive with gulls, rabbits, wind and danger.
The wilder western coast gave him a different sort of setting. Born into Scotland’s celebrated family of lighthouse engineers, Stevenson accompanied his father on journeys connected with their work. On the tidal island of Erraid, off Mull, he encountered granite shores, dangerous reefs, shipwrecks and rapidly changing tides. Erraid later became the place where David Balfour is stranded in Kidnapped and also inspired the fictional island of Aros in “The Merry Men,” a much darker tale in which the breaking waves, wrecks and surrounding sea seem almost to take on lives of their own.
Stevenson also wrote about the coast in his letters. In 1873, after walking with his father between Granton and Cramond, he described “great, gleaming flats of wet sand, over which the gulls go flying and crying.” These shorelines were more than attractive backgrounds to his stories. Their tides could imprison or release a character; their dunes could hide a watcher; and their islands, wrecks and distant ships naturally suggested journeys, disappearances and adventures. Long after Stevenson had left Scotland, its beaches remained among the landscapes to which his writing returned.
For more on Scotland's beautiful beaches, click the photo of Sandwood Bay, near Kinlochbervie, Sutherland.