St Columba's Cave, Ellery, Lochgilphead

Everyone needs a place to break their journey, right? Often on our long drives to the west coast of Scotland, we stop off for a night in a Travelodge. One of those strange en route evenings when Mam, Dad, two kids and two dogs are watching endless 24 hours in A&E before bed and then are all sleeping in a line in the same room, absorbing each other's snores.

St Columba's Cave is quite the equivalent! Classier in some respects due to the view. Inferior due to the lack of UHT milk pods and no TV...ah, and beds. There were no beds or bogs, though there was a sink!

Curling around the bends and folds of Loch Caolisport in the fading light, we happened upon a small homemade sign to St Columba's Cave. Houses are few and far between in this stretch of Knapdale, so we didn't want to intrude on someone's holiday home, but we were curious about the cave connection.

Greeted by a small flock of impressively horned Swaledale sheep, we waded through boggy bracken, sucking our feet into the earth below and perilously hanging on to young silver birch trees for balance.

The walk was short, passing the ruins of a 13th century chapel, which had faired way less well than the cave, and then, quite abruptly interrupting our stride, appeared a vast mouth of cave swallowing up the ground and standing solidly in the face of a wall of rock.

Alleged to have been the home of St Columba, he is said to have occupied this place for some time on his journey from Ulster to Ioana when he had appealed to King Conal to establish a monastery there. While he awaited the King's decision, he sought solace here on the shores of Loch Caolisport.

Wrapped in ferns and ivy, the stone has a curious complexion. Formed from Contorted Chlorite-schist, the twisted layers of rock were speckled with quartz and graphite, and had a 'this way and that' folded texture, similar to those huge slabs of table spread toffee at Beamish!

The entrance is dramatic, a large fang shaped aperture lures you into the dark. Once inside with eyes adjusted, there's a raised area where a drystone alter has been built onto the already proud rock face.

The offerings were varied and plenty and ranged from femer Palm Sunday crosses, scallop and clam shells (It is a kick in the knickers from Loch Fyne!), candles, religious reading and even a pair of sunglasses...symbolic or just plain lost and found? Small crosses are carved into the walls in places.

From the mouth to the tonsils, this cave is approximately 23 metres deep with cavernous ceilings upon entry and dwindling to no standing space at all, yet people have inhabited this cave since Mesolithic times, and have adapted their lifestyle to ensure inhabitation throughout the Bronze Age, The Iron Age, Medieval times, and during early Christianity. It's a significant site of study which enables us to understand how civilisations lived long before us.

It has been done up and renovated many times over the millennia with socket holes chiselled away in the walls, and a deep basin cut from the stone, perhaps for washing or religious ceremony, maybe even a font.

The walls were lined with lichens and liverworts, and were wet to the touch and slippery underfoot.

In the late 19th century, the local landowner allegedly cleared out his cave and found inside a stone coffin. During the late 1950s to 1970s, further excavation took place, which revealed a multitude of fragments of pottery, clay, human bone, carved antler, clay pipes, metal deposits, Viking bronze folding balance scales (maybe trading oysters by the pound!), tools and flints.

There was also evidence of two burials, possibly associated with the church nearby and a 2023 survey of the cave located the bones of a human child that was identified from remains of its teeth. Aged between 3½ and 4½, the child lived during the Bronze Age between 2468 and 2304 BC. Archaeologists could tell that the condition of the child's teeth was poor, that it was unlikely to have been breastfed and that it lived on a shoddy diet, which may have contributed to its early demise.

Suddenly, with this knowledge, the cave becomes a home, a place of refuge for a struggling family living with grief, rather than a weird spectacle in the woods. It's a ready-made house. Lining it up beside the posh refurbs of old churches and revamped schools or the modern half-glass houses spilling out onto the edges of lochs in Scotland, it's easy to see why someone would want to live here with their family. The quiet, the view, the easy access to abundant seafood, and feeling at one with nature.

As we left, we got caught in a tangle of lichen swallowing up a cedar tree, a sign that the air here is good and pure and unpolluted.

And we marvelled at the views. Even on a grey day when the light is falling from the sky, it's just beautiful.