Inner Hebrides Isle of Colonsay
Colonsay is one of the most remote and most completely satisfying of the Inner Hebrides islands, a small island of approximately 20 square kilometres accessible by ferry from Oban and Kennacraig whose combination of the remarkable Kiloran Bay beach, the wooded gardens of Colonsay House, the standing stones of Fingal's Limpet Hammers and the authentic Hebridean island community creates one of the most complete small island experiences available in Scotland. The island has a permanent population of approximately 120 people and the character of a genuinely inhabited community distinguishes it from the uninhabited or day-trip islands of the Hebrides.
Kiloran Bay on the north side of Colonsay is one of the finest beaches in the Inner Hebrides, a broad sweep of Atlantic-facing sand of the brilliant white and turquoise quality characteristic of the best Hebridean beaches but very rare in the more accessible southern Hebrides. The bay faces northwest and receives the Atlantic swell that provides consistent wave action on a beach of considerable size, and the combination of the beach quality and the completely unspoiled setting makes Kiloran one of the finest beaches in Scotland.
The Colonsay Garden, created around Colonsay House in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and benefiting from the mild Atlantic climate of the island, contains remarkable collections of rhododendrons and other acid-loving shrubs and provides an extraordinary horticultural contrast to the wild island landscape surrounding it. The Garden is one of the most northerly in Scotland to maintain such a collection of tender shrubs.