The Clachan Bridge joins Seil to the mainland, a humpbacked single arch built in 1792 across the narrow Clachan Sound; because the sound opens into the Atlantic at both ends, the bridge has long been nicknamed the Bridge over the Atlantic. On the west coast, Ellenabeich is a row of whitewashed cottages built on waste tipped from its own slate quarry, once part of a trade that shipped roofing slate as far as New Zealand and Canada; a storm breached the quarry’s sea wall in 1881 and flooded the pit for good. From Ellenabeich a passenger ferry crosses in a couple of minutes to Easdale Island, and at the south end of Seil a small car ferry crosses Cuan Sound to Luing. Seil itself is the most populous of the Slate Islands, a scatter of crofts and houses either side of the bridge road; visitors today see little trace of the slate industry that once ran beneath the low hills and rocky shore.
