The Bass Rock, or simply the BassM'Crie, Miller, Anderson, Fleming & Balfour (1847). The Bass Rock. Edinburgh (), is an island in the outer part of the Firth of Forth in the east of Scotland. Approximately offshore, and north-east of North Berwick, it is a steep-sided volcanic plug, at its highest point, and is home to a large colony of gannets. The rock is uninhabited, but historically has been settled by an 8th-century Christian hermit, and later was the site of an important castle, which after the Commonwealth period was used as a prison. The island belongs to RSPB Scotland, being previously owned by Hew Hamilton-Dalrymple, whose family acquired it in 1706, and previously to the Lauder family for almost six centuries. The Bass Rock Lighthouse was constructed on the rock in 1902, and the remains of a chapel survive.
The Bass Rock features in many works of fiction, including Lion Let Loose by Nigel Tranter, Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson, The Lion Is Rampant by the Scottish novelist Ross Laidlaw and The New Confessions by William Boyd. Most recently it features prominently in The Bass Rock by Evie Wyld, which won the 2021 Stella Prize.
Geography and geology
The island is a volcanic plug of phonolitic trachyte rock of Carboniferous (Dinantian) age.Read, W. A. et al. (2002) Carboniferous, page 294 in Trewin, N. H. (2002) The Geology of Scotland, 4th edition, London, The Geological Society. The rock was first recognised as an igneous intrusion by James Hutton. Hugh Miller visited in 1847 and wrote about the rock's geology in his book Edinburgh and its Neighbourhood, Geological and Historical: with The Geology of the Bass Rock. It is one of a small number of islands off the East Lothian coast including the Islands of the Forth. To the west are Craigleith, the Lamb, Fidra and finally to the west of Fidra, the low-lying island of Eyebroughy. These are also mainly the result of volcanic activity. To the northeast can be seen the Isle of May off the coast of the East Neuk of Fife.
Bass Rock stands more than high in the Firth of Forth Islands Special Protection Area which covers some but not all of the islands in the inner and outer Firth. The Bass Rock is a Site of Special Scientific Interest in its own right, due to its gannet colony. It is sometimes called "the Ailsa Craig of the East". It is of a similar age (c.340 million years), geological form and petrology to nearby North Berwick Law, a hill on the mainland and to Traprain Law. There are related volcanic formations on the adjacent island of Craigleith and within nearby Edinburgh, namely Arthur's Seat, Calton Hill and Castle Rock.
The Bass does not occupy the skyline of the Firth quite as much as its equivalent in the Clyde, Ailsa Craig, but it can be seen from much of southern and eastern Fife, most of East Lothian, and high points in the Lothians and Borders, such as Arthur's Seat, and the Lammermuir.
Human history
The island was a retreat for an early Christian saint, Baldred, "the Apostle of the Lothians". Baldred is believed to have founded a monastery at Tyninghame. However, at times he retreated to the Bass Rock where he built a small hermitage.
Settlement The earliest recorded proprietors are the Lauder of the Bass family, from whom Sir Harry Lauder is descended. According to legend, the island is said to have been a gift from King Malcolm III of Scotland. The crest on their heraldic arms is, appropriately, a gannet sitting upon a rock.Thomas McCrie, The Bass Rock (Edinburgh, 1848), p. 13: Gregory Lader-Frost, 'Lauder Arms', The Double Tressure, Heraldry Society of Scotland, no. 29 (2007), pp. 20–30,
The 15th-century Scottish writer Hector Boece gave the following description (original spelling):
The origins of the castle are unknown. Sir Robert de Lawedre is mentioned by Blind Harry in The Actes and Deidis of the Illustre and Vallyeant Campioun Schir William Wallace. His tombstone, in the old kirk in North Berwick, as recorded in 1718, read "here lies Sir Robert de Lawedre, great laird Congalton and the Bass, who died May 1311".Thomas McCrie, The Bass Rock (Edinburgh, 1848), p. 13: Alexander Nisbet, A System of Heraldry. In 1316, his son obtained the whole island with that part previously retained by the Church because it contained the holy cell of Saint Baldred.Thomas McCrie, The Bass Rock (Edinburgh, 1848), p. 41.
In 1406, as related by Walter Bower and Andrew of Wyntoun's Cronykil, King Robert III, apprehensive of danger to his son James (afterwards James I) from the Black Douglases, placed the prince in the safety of the Castle of the Bass. James embarked on the Maryenknecht but was detained in England.Michael Brown, James I (Canongate Academic, 1994), pp. 16–17. In 1424 Robert Lauder, with 18 men, had safe conduct with a host of other noblemen, as a hostage for James I at Durham. When King James I returned from captivity in England, he imprisoned his cousin, Walter Stewart, the eldest son of Murdoch Stewart, Duke of Albany, in the Castle of the Bass. Walter's custodians were John Heryng and Robert Lauder, now a close royal councillor.Michael Brown, James I (Canongate Academic, 1994), p. 47.
In May 1497 King James IV visited the Bass and stayed in the castle with a later Sir Robert Lauder of the Bass. The boatmen who conveyed the King from Dunbar were paid 14 shillings.Thomas Dickson, Accounts of Treasurer, vol. 1 (Edinburgh, 1877), p. 337. George Lauder entertained King James VI of Scotland when he visited the Bass in 1581; the king was so enamoured that he offered to buy the island, a proposition which did not commend itself to George Lauder.Thomas McCrie, The Bass Rock (Edinburgh, 1848), p. 16. George was a Privy Counsellor – described as the King's "familiar councillor" – and tutor to the young Prince Henry. Anne of Denmark planned to visit the Bass in June 1597 while staying at Seton Palace.James Dennistoun, Memoirs of the affairs of Scotland by David Moysie (Edinburgh, 1830), p. xxiv. The second-last Lauder laird, George Lauder of the Bass died in his castle on the Bass in 1611.Edinburgh Commissariot Court, Testaments (?)
In 1848 it was reported that there were "about a score and a half" of sheep grazing on the island. By 1870 it was claimed that "twenty-five sheep could be grazed on the grassy top of the rock".
Castle
The Lauders built a fortification not far above the island's only landing-place. The slope is crossed by a curtain wall, which naturally follows the lie of the ground, having projections and round bastions where a rocky projection offers a suitable foundation. The parapets are battlemented, with the usual walk along the top of the walls. Another curtain wall at right-angles runs down to the sea close to the landing-place, ending in a ruined round tower, whose vaulted base has poorly splayed and apparently rather unskilfully constructed embrasures. The entrance passes through this outwork wall close to where it joins the other.
The main defences are entered a little farther on in the same line, through a projecting two-story building which has some fireplaces with very simple and late mouldings. The buildings are of the local basalt, and the masonry is rough rubble; there are, as is so frequently the case, no very clear indications for dating the different parts, which were in all probability erected at different times.
A little beyond the entrance there was a tower that formed a simple keep/bastion and to which had been added a gabled chamber in the 17th century, which, though of restricted dimensions, must have been comfortable enough, with blue Dutch tiles round its moulded fireplace, later very much decayed. The keep and the living quarters within the walls were taken down to provide stone for the lighthouse in 1902.
A well at the top of the Bass, where today the foghorn is situated, provided freshwater for the island's occupants.
Chapel Halfway up the island stands the ruin of St Baldred's Chapel, which is sited upon a cell or cave in which this Scottish Saint spent some time. Although the Lauders held most of the Bass Rock, this part of it had remained in the ownership of the Church until 1316, when it was granted to the family. The chapel appears to have been rebuilt by the Lauder family several times. A papal bull dated 6 May 1493, refers to the parish church of the Bass, or the Chapel of St Baldred, being noviter erecta (newly established) at that time. On 5 January 1542 John Lauder, son of Sir Robert Lauder of the Bass, was recorded as "the Cardinal's Secretary" representing Cardinal David Beaton at a reconsecration of the restored and ancient St Baldred's chapel on the Bass. In 1576 it was recorded that the church on the Bass, and that at Auldhame on the mainland, required no readers, doubtless something to do with the Reformation.
Prison During the 15th century James I consigned several of his political enemies, including Walter Stewart, to the Bass. In this period, many members of the Clan MacKay ended up there, including Neil Bhass MacKay (Niall "Bhas" MacAoidh), who gained his epithet from being imprisoned there as a fourteen-year-old in 1428. He was kept there as a hostage after his father, Aonghas Dubh (Angus Dhu) of Strathnaver in Sutherland, was released, as security. According to one website
After almost 600 years, the Lauders lost the Bass in the 17th century during Cromwell's invasion, and the castle subsequently (in 1671) became a notorious jail to which for many decades religious and political prisoners, especially Covenanters were sent. The island has been called the Patmos of Scotland, referring the exile to that island of John of Patmos. Alexander Shields the Covenanting preacher, imprisoned on the island, later described the Bass as "a dry and cold rock in the sea, where they had no fresh water nor any provision but what they had brought many miles from the country, and when they got it, it would not keep unspoiled". He is reported to have escaped by dressing in women's clothing but this occurred from the Edinburgh Tolbooth rather than from the island's jail.
James Fraser of Brea gave a fuller description including eating fruit from the island's cherry trees. John Blackadder, and John Rae, died on the Bass and were buried at North Berwick. Blackadder had a Free Church named after him there.
James Anderson lists 39 Covenanting "martyrs" who were imprisoned on the Bass: Patrick Anderson, William Bell, Robert Bennet of Chesters, John Blackadder, Sir Hugh Campbell, Sir George Campbell, John Campbell, Robert Dick, John Dickson, James Drummond, Alexander Dunbar, James Fithie, Alexander Forrester, James Fraser, Robert Gillespie, Alexander Gordon, John Greig, Thomas Hog, Peter Kid, John Law, Joseph Learmont, William Lin, James Macaulay, John M'Gilligen, James Mitchell, Alexander Peden, Michael Potter, John Rae, Archibald Riddell, Robert Ross, Thomas Ross, Gilbert Rule, George Scot, Alexander Shields, William Spence, John Spreul (apothecary), John Spreul (town clerk), John Stewart, and Robert Traill.
Charles Maitland held the Bass for James VII for a brief period after the Scottish Convention declared him to be deposed.
However, some of the prisoners were imprisoned there for minor misdemeanors. In 1678 Hector Allan, a Quaker in Leith was sentenced to a period on the Rock for "abusing and railing" (i.e. verbally insulting) Rev Thomas Wilkie of North Leith Parish Church. Although this was then commuted to imprisonment in Leith Tolbooth, this seems a harsh punishment.Cassell's Old and New Edinburgh; vol. 6, ch. 25