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Breakish Bridge Cave

Skye, Breakish, Invernessshire.

Cave at Breakish Bridge. Location well known. Shown on 1" OS map. Large entrance below small cliff on west bank of Allt Lochain Cruinn, 30 m downstream of bridge on Broadford - Kyleakin road. Entrance recess scattered with domestic rubbish (mostly old) drops to short crawl into chamber. Five passages lead off. Downstream crawl over cobbles, narrows to short squeeze before enlarging slightly again near lower entrance - a low slot in the stream bank. In wet weather, the cave stream resurges a few metres downstream. Two crawls through main chamber, a bedding 8 m long by 5 m wide & up to 1.5 m high. In SW corner beneath forest of stalactites is upstream passage, crawl sloping up into small chamber ending in impassable fissures & boulder ruckle. Stream from passage crosses corner of main chamber into wide but lowering bedding almost connecting to wet crawl leading upstream from chamber by entrance.

Alternative Names: Maolaig (Uamh), Uamh Maolaig, Monk's Cave

Notes: GSG brief visit 1974 (mistaken for Skulamus as MSG published incorrect reference). June 1981 surveyed by MSG & Richard Gibson pushed downstream crawl to lower entrance. The local name for the Breakish Bridge Cave is Uamh Maolaig (Monk's Cave), as apparently a monk used to live in it.

St. Maelrubha (c.642-722), the apostle to Skye, is said to have sailed over from Applecross (on a large flat stone) and to have occupied the small island of Pabay opposite the beach (at Ashaig). There are still to be seen the sacred spring that started when the saint tore a small tree from the ground. [Wikipedia]

Saint Maelrubha was and Irish Monk who founded a monastery at Abercrossan (now Applecross), , after St. Columba, perhaps the most popular saint of the northwest of Scotland. Here he built his chief church and monastery in the midst of the Pictish folk, and thence he set out on missionary journeys, westward to the islands Skye and Lewis, eastward to Forres and Keith, and northward to Loch Shinn, Durness, and Farr. It was on this last journey that he was martyred by Danish vikings, probably at Teampull, about nine miles up Strath-Naver from Farr, where he had built a cell. He was buried close to the River Naver, not far from his cell, and his grave is still marked by "a rough cross-marked stone". [The Catholic Encyclopedia]

See also Tobar Ashaik.

The given coordinates place this cave on the boundary between Breakish Formation - Limestone With Subordinate Sandstone And Argillaceous Rocks and North Britain Palaeogene Dyke Suite - Basalt And Microgabbro.

Hydrographic Feeds: Allt Lochain Cruinn

Hydrographic Resurgences: Allt Lochain Cruinn