Eadar Dha Fhadhail/Ardroil


Ardroil (Eadar Dha Fhadhail – ‘between two fords’) lies on the southwestern side of Uig Sands.

The area now occupied more or less by the village once contained five townships: Capadal, Peighinn Dhomhnaill (Pennydonald), Baile Nicol, Baile Ghriasaich and Baile Ghobhainn. These were cleared by Stewart Mackenzie, the proprietor of the island, in the late 1830s to make way for the farm known as Ardroil.  Neighbouring Carnish was later cleared by the Mathesons to be added to the farm. Remains of the original Ardroil farmhouse form part of the walls of the stone fank, near the present-day council skip by the bridge over Abhainn Dearg, and the later farmhouse was built around 1840 on a site near the sands, now on 1 Ardroil.

The Capadal families moved mostly to Swainbost in Ness and some later to Canada in 1851; two Macdonald brothers, Kenneth and Farquhar, went to Geshader – Farquhar by way of Canada. The farm was resettled as crofts after the First World War.

It was in the dunes at Ardroil that the famous Lewis Chessmen were found by Malcolm Macleod of Pennydonald in 1831.  His family was cleared shortly thereafter and settled in Swainbost.


We will be digitaising all of our archives soon…

The archives we have are currently in the Museum. Most of the known genealogy of Ardroil has been documented on Hebridean Connections.


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