![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Back to Iona...
Dec. 24th, 2010 12:55 pmI've taken a well-earned break from cleaning the kitchen counters. We've become a laundry service - our neighbours (not the noisy ones) and J's daughter are both suffering from washing machine crises today.
Methinks the thaw is beginning to set in (hey, it's only -1 in the porch today!) and as a result, evil things are afoot in the water department. So far, we're holding out, but... It's all very well looking after your internal pipework. If the ground freezes so deep that the supply pipes are frozen solid, what can you do?
Ulp... I can envisage all sorts of evil possibilities involving mini-diggers and happy, happy, plumbers. Thankfully the neighbour in question is well in with the construction brigade...
No more of this negativity! I thought I'd take a wee trip back to Iona, for an entirely different type of site/monument, and one which you've probably never heard of...
There's a few places in the world I've always wanted to visit. Like Knossos. And Pompeii. And Barcelona. And Carcassone. And the Iona Marble Quarry.
It's not much to look at, but my interest goes back years. When I was a child, my mother took on an important role as head of the household-thought-police. I was banned from reading girly comics like the Bunty and the Judy. Instead, I was introduced to a wonderful comic called Spellbound, which had a variety of tales, including a long running serial involving four space ranger type girlies who had weekly adventures in outer space. It was a bit like X-men meets Futurama meets The Four Marys... There were, in addtiion, school tales, horsey tales, etcetera, all with a fantastical or supernatural twist.
The comic also had non-fiction features about mystical places, and one of these talked about the myths and legends and history of Iona. I remember reading in this article about a special kind of pebble with so-called mystical properties which was found only on an isolated beach on Iona. So, being interested in geology at the time, I decided that some day I was going to find one of these magical Iona pebbles.
Fast forward twenty years. I was doing some work for the council, and I stumbled across the Iona Marble Quarry. The marvellous pebbles I'd been fascinated by as a child were none other than Iona marble, and once upon a time, there'd been an industrial enterprise on the island which quarried the stuff. So when we holidayed on Mull, I made it my mission to visit the marble quarry on nearby Iona.
It's in a wonderfully scenic part of the island, close to the beach where St Columba reportedly first made landfall. I'd love to have shown you the bay, but unfortunately we didn't take any photographs, which was very remiss of me, I know. We were probably too busy getting lost - this end of the island is only accessible on foot, and the map we were using was not very helpful.
This was the object of our quest, a tiny little quarry tucked away at the south end of the island:-
It operated in the late 19th and early 20th century, if I remember right, with production finally ceasing due to lack of demand for what is a rather beautiful stone: brilliant white, with green veins.
When I got there, I was not disappointed. The machinery remains intact in places, adding to the atmosphere:-
Quarrying resumed here briefly in recent years, with a large slab of Iona marble removed for a new altar which now sits in pride of place at the nearby Abbey. I suppose it's a shame that Iona marble isn't better known, but I quite like the fact that this desolate place still exists at the end of the island. It feels like the edge of the world.
And the magical properties of the stone itself? It was only when I visited Iona that I learned the superstitions behind it. Being in possession of a piece of Iona marble is supposed to safeguard the carrier against shipwrecks.
I wonder if it works for aeroplanes, too...
