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Arran Arts Heritage Trail Map
15. Whiting Bay
15. Whiting Bay

15. Whiting Bay / Am Bàgh 

Listen to Gaelic translation

Whiting Bay, the third largest settlement on Arran, and once a thriving  tourist destination during the Edwardian era is still home to some of the finest villas on the island. 


Today the village still boasts one of the finest walks on Arran, taking visitors from the coast via an iron age fort to the dramatic  Glenashdale falls. This walk also includes a visit to 'The Giants Graves' two neolithic chambered tombs high above the village which give spectacular views to the Holy Isle and the mountains of Arran to the North. 


Whiting Bay is an important site in the post-war life of the island, and site of the former Arran Gallery at St Columba's Church which, aside from being run by the Gill family of artists and makers, showed a wide range of contemporary Scottish artists on the island, including Alasdair Gray, James Gorman and Alan Davie among others. 


It is therefore unsurprising that sculptor Bruce Maclean chose Whiting Bay to make his innovative 'Seaskape' work in Largiebeg in 1969. 


In this piece Maclean attempted to "let the sea make a mark, a perfect pure mark, over which I had little control'. Unfortunately for Maclean, the sea had other ideas and the work floated out on the tide. 


The island continues to attract high profile contemporary artists such as Hamish Fulton, Richard DeMarco, Duncan Shanks, and Turner Prize winner Charlotte Prodger, all of whom have made work on Arran.

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