Sameira Estate

The Sameria estate (previously know as Bàs Rock) is a hammock within Midtmose bog on Skarn. From antiquity the 2500 acre site was a dense woodland until the Sameria Organisation deforested and set about doing major groundworks in preparation for the building of Finnféarans only asylum.

## Geology

Unlike other hammocks, the Sameira estate is built on a solid raised bed. Height differences between hammocks and average water levels are usualy only inches, but in the case of the Sameira estate the difference is roughly 2 feet. This means the estate has flooded only once in its history.

## History

### Early History

Though Skarn has never held a steady population it has always had a place in the spiritual calendar of the isles. Texts that mention the two stone circles in the Tana meadows also mention an "*orthostat within the marsh"* and place great importance on the offerings made there, though when constructing the Asylum no workers mentioned finding another circle or monument.

### Bás Rock and A 'Gliocas a' Bhail

The hammock was the site of a makeshift camp after the occupants of Gliocas Bhail retreated inwards to the marsh after storms destroyed their village. Due to storms preventing sending extra ships to collect the bodies, the corpses of the villagers were buried on Bás rock.

### The Sameira Asylum

In the late 1860s the Sameira Larkin Corporation decided to expand their pharmaceutical business into medical research, health care and security service industries. Siting Finnféaran (and Skarn in particular) as "*the perfect place for those of mental relapse"* due to its *"isolation, natural landscape and fresh sea air"* though close proximity to centres of population like Edinburgh, Newcastle, Aberdeen and Bergen it was granted an Asylum licence and bought the eastern portion of Skarn off the Larsen and Kristiansen families. Bás Rock was selected as it had the largest expanse of flat ground outside of the Tana meadows (which they also proposed buying but were refused by the McDarroch Historic Society who owned the land). The site was extensively deforested and the Asylum was built in the Gothic style, complete with formal grounds, a working kitchen allotment to feed the institution and botanical gardens.

### Closure

Since the 1940s as the practices of "mad houses" and especially that of the Sameira Asylum were frowned upon many patients were transferred from Skarn. The large site and dwindling staff meant the condition of the buildings and grounds could not be up-kept and by 1956 half the Asylum was off limits due to structural damage from water ingress. The last patient was transferred in June 1958 to the Østmarka Hospital in Norway.

### Today

The Asylum and botanical gardens, although partially collapsed, still exist on the island. Continuously owned by the Sameira Organisation, the site is off limits and has had a wire fence erected around the northern portion of the hammock to dissuade potential urban explorers. Combined with a lack of ferry services and the dangerous marshland surrounding the estate there are very few pictures of the estate since its closures, the latest from 1992/3 showed that a great portion of the woods had returned and the previously species inside the botanics had grown through the roof. Their are efforts by the RSPB to buy the site and turn it into a marshland nature reserve, though the Sameira Organisation has not commented on any plans to sell.