Visit the haunting sites and spectacular locations associated with the Scottish Clearances – a notorious and brutal period in the history of the north Highlands and Islands. In a dozen years, 15,000 people were forcibly evicted from one million acres of land in the Sutherland estates.
They were dragged from their houses, and if that failed, roofs were burned over their heads. Many died. These were Gaelic speaking families who lived hard but stable lives, sometimes vulnerable to bad harvests and even to famine, but where a family could increase their comfort slowly, generation by generation.
Instead of rearing 20 to 30 cattle in a community in the strath, they would be forced to rent couple of acres with a couple of cows on the coast. Later, they chose between starving or emigrating in ‘coffin ships’.
Their empty homelands were filled with sheep, which the landowners thought were more profitable than people. To get a sense of the long-term impact, the total population of Sutherland now is only 13,000, and almost all of them live in towns on the coast.
The scars of this history can still be seen if you know what to look for, from the ruined townships to the stateliest of stately homes. This guide assumes you are driving up the east coast, from Inverness.
Let’s start with the migrants, driven from home. The Emigration Stone set next to the Cromarty Firth is a large memorial, looking like an ancient standing stone.
The stone commemorates people on the emigrant ships that passed the spot in the 1830s and ’40s. The names of 39 ships are carved around the edge of the stone. The words of Hugh Millar, a writer from Cromarty, describe the scene:
The Cleopatra, as she swept past the town of Cromarty, was greeted with three cheers by crowds of the inhabitants, and the emigrants returned the salute. But mingled with the dash of the waves, and the murmurs of the breeze, their faint huzzas seemed rather the sounds of wailing and lamentation than a congratulatory farewell.
Forced migration is a hard and frightening thing.
Things to see and do nearby
The Black Isle is a destination in its own right:
There is a statue, high on the hill above Golspie. It is of an Englishman, George Leveson-Gower, Marquess of Stafford and first Duke of Sutherland. He owned all and more of the land you can see when you walk up to the statue; almost a million acres in the county of Sutherland, alone.
He and his wife Elizabeth, Countess of Sutherland in her own right, were responsible for the Sutherland clearances.
In some ways, they were 19th century aristocrats doing what 19th century aristocrats did – taking over and de-populating distant places, and calling their racist colonialism ‘improvements’. From their perspective, they introduced new economic and agricultural ideas, which were the product of Enlightenment thinking.
But this also meant – very conveniently – that they made more money from rents.
Don’t miss
How did they get away with these evictions?
The Leveson-Gowers had help of course, from their own brutal agents up to and including the militia and troops.
In this video, Bruce Fummey tells the dramatic story of a confrontation between the crofters and the people sent to evict them, that took place outside the Golspie Inn, the bargains that were offered, and sometimes struck, and how it led to Highlanders migrating to Canada.
So, drop into the Golspie Inn, and have a cup of tea, drink a dram, or book a room in the pub, formerly known as the Sutherland Arms. And when you do that, remember the confrontation that took place outside the pub between the Highlanders, and the men who ruthlessly evicted them.
Walk off your lunch
They say the victors write the history books, but in fact, they choose what gets left out.
Don’t get me wrong – I love going to Dunrobin Castle. It is a great way to spend two or three hours; it’s an impressive stately home, the formal gardens are spectacular, and the falconry display is excellent.
But…
But if you blink, you’ll miss any connection between the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland, and the Sutherland Clearances. Try awarding points to anyone in your group who spots a reference to the Clearances in the Castle. Loser buys lunch, perhaps (the café is excellent, by the way). My bet is no-one will get any points, and you’ll share the cost between you!
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What of the people who migrated?
They are commemorated in a dramatic statue in Helmsdale, a man and young boy looking out to sea, a woman clutching her baby and looking back up the strath towards their ruined homes, all three figures caught in the wind.
There is a copy of it in Manitoba in Canada, where it is called the Selkirk Settlers, or the Exiles.
The woman haunts me, and I find the statue, and the fact there is a copy on the other side of the ocean, incredibly moving.
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The ones who stayed in Scotland were forced into small, newly formed crofts, often on bad land near the coast. People from far inland were expected to live by fishing. (How hard could that be, thought the Leveson-Gowers; it was something illiterate, poor people did, so it must be an easy thing to do).
When you walk to Badbea Clearance Village, you find an abandoned settlement, high on the cliffs, facing the full blast of winter storms, and constant northerly and easterly winds throughout the year. The village has a complicated and troubled history, with some of its existing families being evicted to make way for the displaced Highlanders. The last resident left in 1911. Their descendants have created a website commemorating their ancestors’ fates.
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It is hard to imagine how the people of Badbea and other Clearance villages lived. So am including this although the museum is only occasionally open at present. Plans are in place to look after the museum and its contents, and I hope it will fully reopen soon.
In the meantime
As time passed, some crofters eventually prospered. Mary Ann’s Cottage was built a generation after the Clearances and was home to three generations of the Calder family.
When the last of them – Mary Ann – died in 1990 aged 99, the cottage was a time-capsule of her family’s traditional rural life. Its outbuildings and tiny house show us rural living in the Highlands during the 20th Century, much of it in living memory.
Things to see and do nearby
To find out more about the evictions, visit the Strathnaver museum in Bettyhill. The museum tells the story of members of the Clan Mackay, and of others who were evicted from the townships up the strath, who were forced to make their lives elsewhere.
The man who lodged in my memories the most became shepherd to the sheep who replaced his ancestors. How would that feel? It shows some of the brutality of the clearances, and what life was like in a croft house. It’s welcoming to children and adults alike, with original items, and audio-visual displays.
Things to see and do nearby
To see for yourself some of the places the people lived in before the evictions, follow the Strathnaver Trail by car or on foot.
The B873 runs the length of the strath, from Altnaharra (due north of Lairg in central Sutherland), to Bettyhill (on the north coast). Bettyhill, incidentally, is named after Elizabeth, Duchess of Sutherland, who instigated the Sutherland Clearances.
The trail map – available as a leaflet or a pdf – helps you visit the sites of townships that were cleared, memorials, and other sites of interest like stone circles and brochs. This empty landscape was populated for millennia before the Duke and Duchess emptied it of people.
This complicated episode in Scotland’s history has lessons for us today, as permanent employment gives way to zero hours contracts, and as human interactions and jobs are taken over by inhuman AI. And, of course, as hundreds of thousands of people are fleeing their homelands in the face of brutality, war and starvation.
Videos by Bruce Fummey of Scotland History Tours
I was happy to drop him a couple of bob as thanks for the help his videos were with this blog.
Summaries
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My name is Ben and I have been fascinated by history since I was a child. I am currently studying Scottish History part time at the University of the Highlands and Islands. I also love to help people discover the history and heritage of the place that I live, Noss Head, when I welcome people to stay at The Lighthouse Keeper’s Cottage, here.
As this blog shows, humanity matters. This is why it was written by me, without the use of AI, and why my fact-checking included phone-calls, emails and site visits.
