Scottish Islands, big and small, regularly feature in the world’s top holiday destinations. One, however, remains absent from all tourist itineraries: Gruinard.
The mile-long treeless isle lies in a quiet bay just around the peninsula west of Ullapool and was once a haunt of fishermen and crofters. But by the mid-20th century, visitors were prohibited and it became known as the island of death. Something terrible had happened there, but the full story only began to emerge following a BBC documentary in 1962 after reports of clouds of poison and mysterious deaths of sheep. The tale is entwined with Britain’s most desperate moments in the Second World War and has got us curious to know more.
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What happened at Gruinard Island?
In 1942, with the Nazis ascendant, Prime Minister Churchill sought advanced tools of war to turn the tide. As part of the plan, the MoD came to Scotland to find a location to test weaponry. Though less than half a mile from the mainland, Gruinard Island was isolated and seldom visited. It was deemed perfect.
The island was purchased, locals were banned and scientists from the MoD’s biological weapons facility at Porton Down arrived to carry out clandestine experiments. Their weapon of choice: anthrax, a deadly infectious bacteria produced from naturally occurring soil organisms.
Having acquired a flock of sheep as ‘sacrificial lambs’, the scientists used remote-controlled explosives that were packed full of the bacteria to infect the island. The sheep quickly became sick and died, their carcasses later burned or buried. Worse still, sheep on the nearby mainland were somehow also affected.
The MoD’s wider plan was to drop seedcakes laced with anthrax across Germany to wipe out livestock – and part of the human population. Thankfully though, it was abandoned. As was Gruinard Island. Without explanation, the MoD locked down the island and left it contaminated for decades upon decades.
Demand for action
Yet the scientists had been seen by crofters on the mainland and, following BBC investigations, pressure was put on successive governments to explain the mystery. After an unsuccessful government-led clean-up attempt in the 1970s, a group known as the Dark Harvest Commandos emerged in the early 1980s and demanded action.
The Commandos left buckets of supposedly contaminated soil at Porton Down in protest. Their efforts may have worked as in 1986, a full clean-up of the island was ordered. Using a seawater purge and removing and incinerating some of the topsoil, the island was declared anthrax-free in 1990.
Can you visit Gruinard Island today?
Once the island was declared safe in 1990, the MoD opened it up for visitors for the first time in 48 years. The whole island is legally protected as a scheduled ancient monument since 1975 and is now owned by the Conon and Gairloch Estate. Since it sits close to the mainland, Gruinard can be viewed from the A832 road that runs along the coast by Mungasdale Cove. There doesn't seem to be any organised ferry service to set foot on the island itself, those that want to do would need to contact local fishermen or boat owners and agree on a fare.
Main image: The anthrax connection in Gruinard Island, United Kingdom in November 2001 - NATO base at Mellon Charles (Photo by Chip HIRES/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)
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- "I resented the injustice of English policy" – a new immersive attraction in Cornwall shines light on anti-war activist Emily Hobhouse
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