Читать книгу Walking on Rum and the Small Isles. Rum, Eigg, Muck, Canna, Coll and Tiree онлайн

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After the Marquess of Salisbury’s death, the island was bought by Farquhar Campbell in 1870, who passed it on to his nephew. In 1888 Rum was acquired by John Bullough, a cotton machinery manufacturer and self-made millionaire from Accrington in Lancashire who had previously leased the island’s shooting rights. The prospectus for the 1888 sale described Rum as: ‘The most picturesque of the islands which lie off the west coast of Scotland, it is altogether a property of exceptional attractions...as a sporting estate it has at present few equals'. At this time the population numbered between 60 and 70 shepherds, estate workers and their families. When Bullough died in 1891, ownership of the island was assumed by his son, George Bullough.

Sir George Bullough – he was knighted in 1901 – changed the traditional spelling of the island’s name to Rhum in 1905, allegedly to avoid the connotations in the title Laird of Rum (the spelling reverted to Rum in 1992 when SNH took over from the NCC). However, Sir George’s most striking legacy is the incongruous and often maligned Kinloch Castle, built during the last years of the 19th century and completed in 1902. The castle was built from red sandstone quarried at Annan in Dumfriesshire. A hundred stonemasons and craftsmen were brought from Lancashire, and Sir George purportedly paid the workforce extra to wear kilts of Rum plaid.