The Museum at Comann Eachdraidh an Taobh Siar
About
The Museum at Comann Eachdraidh an Taobh Siar is the museum and archive of the West Side Historical Society, covering the string of crofting townships along the western seaboard of the Isle of Lewis from Arnol in the north to Dalbeg in the south. It occupies Ionad Na Seann Sgoil, the Old School Centre, in the village of Shawbost, and is run by the community whose history it documents.
Comainn eachdraidh — local historical societies — are one of the more remarkable cultural institutions of the Outer Hebrides. Founded from the late 1970s onwards across the islands, they set out to record a Gaelic-speaking crofting society whose oral memory was visibly thinning as the generation born before the First World War died. The result is a network of village-run archives holding material of a density that professional museums rarely achieve, because the collecting was done by neighbours who knew exactly whose photograph was whose and which house stood on which croft.
The West Side collection reflects that method. It holds photographs and illustrative material alongside ledgers and written records covering the separate townships of Arnol, Bragar, Shawbost and Dalbeg individually rather than as an undifferentiated district, which matters enormously in a landscape where identity attaches to the township and the croft number rather than to any larger unit. The holdings document crofting and land use, the herring fishery and the men who followed it round the coasts of Britain, Harris Tweed weaving in domestic sheds, the Gaelic language and its songs and traditions, emigration to Canada and beyond, and the devastating losses of the First World War, which fell more heavily on Lewis than on almost any comparable community in Britain.
The West Side is also exceptionally rich in visible heritage. The Arnol Blackhouse, preserved by Historic Environment Scotland with its peat fire still burning, is minutes away, as are the restored Norse mill and kiln at Shawbost, the Bragar whalebone arch, Dun Carloway broch and the Gearrannan blackhouse village. The museum supplies the human context that turns those monuments from curiosities into evidence of a way of life within living memory.
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Plan Your Visit
⏱️ Recommended Visit Duration
💡 Visitor Tips
- Do not plan to visit on a Sunday. Sabbath observance remains strong on Lewis and the museum, along with most other facilities on the island, does not open.
- Make contact before travelling if you can. Opening is seasonal and depends on volunteer availability, and the West Side is a long drive from Stornoway to find a locked door.
- If you have West Side ancestry, come with names, township names and croft numbers if you know them. The township-by-township records can frequently identify a specific house and its occupants.
- Build the visit into a full day along the A858, taking in the Norse mill at Shawbost, the Arnol Blackhouse, Dun Carloway broch, Gearrannan and Callanish.
- Visit the Arnol Blackhouse either before or after the museum. Seeing the peat fire burning inside a genuine blackhouse and then reading the township records gives each far more force than either alone.
- Bring food and drink. Catering options along the west side are sparse and seasonal, and the museum has no café.
- Fill up with fuel in Stornoway before setting out. Filling stations on the west side are few and keep limited hours.
- Allow far more driving time than the distances suggest; the A858 is a good road by Hebridean standards but single-track sections and sheep on the carriageway both slow progress.
Highlights
Township-by-Township Records: Arnol, Bragar, Shawbost and Dalbeg
The defining feature of the collection is that it records each township separately rather than treating the West Side as one undifferentiated district. Ledgers and written records document Arnol, Bragar, Shawbost and Dalbeg individually, croft by croft and family by family. This granularity matters more here than almost anywhere else in Britain, because Hebridean identity attaches to the township and the croft number rather than to any larger administrative unit.
For anyone tracing West Side ancestry, this structure means the archive can often answer questions down to the level of a specific house and its successive occupants across generations.
The Comann Eachdraidh Movement
The local historical societies that sprang up across the Outer Hebrides from the late 1970s represent one of the most successful grassroots heritage movements anywhere in Scotland. They were founded in urgent recognition that a Gaelic-speaking crofting society was losing its oral memory as the generation born before the First World War died out.
Because the collecting was done by neighbours rather than visiting professionals, the resulting archives carry a density of identification — who is in the photograph, which croft, which boat, which year — that outside institutions could never have achieved.
The West Side society is a strong example of the model.
The Photographic Collection
Photographs form the heart of the collection and the part most visitors respond to immediately: township scenes, blackhouses and the later white houses that replaced them, peat cutting and stacking, sheep fanks and the communal work of the crofting year, weddings, school groups, boat crews and emigrant farewells.
Spanning roughly a century, they document a way of life that changed more between 1900 and 1970 than in the several centuries preceding. Because the society knows who almost everyone is, the images function as a genealogical resource as much as a visual record.
Crofting and the Land
Crofting shaped every aspect of West Side life: the strips of arable running back from the road, the shared grazings on the moor, the peat banks that supplied fuel, and the summer shielings where cattle were taken to graze. Displays cover the tools and practices of the crofting year, the security of tenure won by the Crofters Act of 1886 after decades of agitation, and the land raids and settlement struggles that followed the First World War when returning servicemen found the promises made to them unfulfilled.
This is agricultural history with a sharp political edge.
Collections
The museum of Comann Eachdraidh an Taobh Siar holds the community archive of the West Side of Lewis, covering the townships from Arnol through Bragar and Shawbost to Dalbeg.
Holdings comprise photographs and illustrative material alongside ledgers and written records documenting each township separately, with information on families, crofts and houses across roughly a century and a half. Subject coverage includes crofting and land tenure, the Harris Tweed industry and domestic weaving, the herring fishery and merchant navy service, Gaelic language and tradition, emigration to Canada and elsewhere, and the exceptionally heavy First World War losses sustained by Lewis, including the Iolaire disaster of 1919.
The Townships of the West Side
Displays covering Arnol, Bragar, Shawbost and Dalbeg township by township, drawing on photographs, ledgers and written records of families, crofts and houses.
Working Life on the West Side
Crofting, peat cutting, Harris Tweed weaving, the herring fishery and merchant navy service, together with emigration and the community's wartime experience.
Themes
Time Periods
Current Exhibitions
No current exhibitions. Please check the museum website for updates.