Qualla: Scolpaig Tower https://qualla.com/scolpaig-tower en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:24 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Scolpaig Tower https://qualla.com/scolpaig-tower Scolpaig Tower: Introduction https://qualla.com/scolpaig-tower/ Dr Alexander MacLeod needed to give people work. It was around 1830, North Uist was hungry, and the estate factor - the man who managed the land for absent owners - had access to building money but no legitimate project. So he invented one. On a small islet in Loch Scolpaig, where Iron Age people had once raised a stone fort called a dun, he commissioned a Gothic-style folly: a two-storey octagonal tower of crenellated rubble masonry, useless from the day it was finished. The point was the wages. The point was the bread the wages bought.

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]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/4/x/scolpaig-tower-wp/gf4x-scolpaig-tower-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Scolpaig Tower: Folly as Welfare https://qualla.com/scolpaig-tower/ The early nineteenth century was a brutal time on the Hebrides. The kelp industry had collapsed after the Napoleonic Wars, the potato blight was coming, and absentee landlords were beginning the systematic clearance of crofters in favour of sheep. In this context, MacLeod's tower...

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]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/4/x/scolpaig-tower-wp/gf4x-scolpaig-tower-folly-as-welfare.mp3 0:06 2 full Scolpaig Tower: Architecture and Setting https://qualla.com/scolpaig-tower/ The tower stands two storeys high on an octagonal footprint, surmounted by a crenellated parapet that gives it the silhouette of a miniature castle. The walls are coursed rubble - rough field stones laid in lime mortar - and a low stone wall, built at the same time, rings the isl...

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]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/4/x/scolpaig-tower-wp/gf4x-scolpaig-tower-architecture-and-setting.mp3 0:06 3 full Scolpaig Tower: Listed, Unlisted, Protected https://qualla.com/scolpaig-tower/ Historic Scotland approved Scolpaig Tower as a Category B listed building in 1971, then withdrew the listing in 2018 under the Dual Designation 2A project - a process that removes the listing where a structure is already protected as a scheduled monument, to avoid the duplication...

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]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/4/x/scolpaig-tower-wp/gf4x-scolpaig-tower-listed-unlisted-protected.mp3 0:06 4 full Scolpaig Tower: Why the Name https://qualla.com/scolpaig-tower/ Scolpaig probably comes from the Old Norse scolpvik, meaning Scolp Bay - a scolp being a large Hebridean vessel, possibly relating to the nearby bay where such boats may have landed. The Norse named places after what they did there, and what they did at Scolp Bay was beach their ...

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]]> Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/4/x/scolpaig-tower-wp/gf4x-scolpaig-tower-why-the-name.mp3 0:06 5 full