O'er moorland and brae: Clearing the straths

We are now north of Inverness, driving through land seriously depleted of people. We occasionally come across little lord-built villages scattered along the rocky ledge of the coast, but we soon become aware of the tragic history surrounding these and how they came to be.

As the lords of the land determined that sheep made better profit for them than tenant farmers, many of them hired factors to set about introducing 'improvements' that would allow them to clear their land for sheep. The year 1792, in particular, was called the 'Year of the Sheep' because as the sheep moved in to the highlands the tenant farmers were moved out: sometimes 2000 people a day. Though this went on for decades.

And sometimes forcibly: thatches on their earthen long homes and byres were torched in the middle of the night, and folk, in the throes of this terrible trauma, had to gather what possessions they could carry on their backs, and start walking.

Often to the coast where the plots of land set aside for them were kept deliberately small, too small to suffice for self-sufficiency, as it was determined they should become fishermen, despite being farm folk for centuries knowing nothing but animals and agriculture.

The lords had built harbours up and down the coast. They needed labour to establish these as fishing harbours. And they were cleansing their lands: they no longer wanted to support the hundreds of families, who, for centuries, in bad times when their crop failed, might come knocking and beg a hunk of bread to feed starving children.

Some villagers were actually helped by the lords: humble crofts were built on the shore line and folk moved in and tried to make sense of this new life, fishing and self-sufficiency farming, in a barren rocky place.

Some left their strath homes and headed straight down to the newly built harbours where they were laden on to steamers which took them to larger boats, then away from Scotland forever: to places they had barely heard of: Nova Scotia, the Red River, the Carolinas, Australia.

Some were made to leave and were given nothing: they filed down family behind family, their carts loaded and tools aloft, making for the coast where they were told to go; huddling there on the rocky edge of this windswept land, and when dawn broke on their new lives, they had to set about building themselves some sort of shelter: from rocks, from wood, from sod: all that was available.

So windblown were these shores that the women of some of the newly built villages had to drive stakes into the rocky ground to strap their babes down, to stop them being blown away as they worked.

It is not surprising then, that the statue of the Duke of Sutherland, George Leveson-Gower, one of the more notorious clearance lords, that was set up high on Ben Braggie overlooking his palatial home, Dunrobin Castle, is so very often defaced to this day. The Scots have long memories. What is remembered most of his Duchess at the time, is her observation, when writing to a friend in England: "Scotch people are of happier constitution and do not fatten like the larger breed of animals."

We drove the narrow route to the Straths of Kildonan where centuries of clansfolk once lived as happy tenant farmers until the Clearances. They walked this terrible route down to the coast when they were removed from their land. Today, there is not even an historical sign to show that once they lived here. But the sheep are here still. Tho' hardly occupying all of the land.

We went to Brora Harbour and tried to imagine the scene as it was when the Sutherland clans were loaded on to steamers here, during the clearances, before heading for New Zealand: a place they had likely never even heard of until then. The Brora harbour is barely a puddle today when the tide is out. But, it was built by the lord, and it served its purpose.

We walked to Bradbea. This is in Sinclair land, and to us it was one the most inhumane locations on the coast of Caithness. This was the saddest of all. We walked when the sun was out. It was a relatively lovely day. As we walked downhill to where the Clearance village had once been, winds gusted around the jutting coves dangerously. We could barely stand. And this was a fine, fine day.

We are in a land here that is latitudinally north of Moscow. Which brings to mind a similar hell: the salt mines of Siberia. But add the wind.

What it would be like on the edge of these cliffs on a rotten day does not bear thinking about. There is no trace of any village in Bradbea now, but one New Zealand descendant has been so touched by the place, that he has personally paid to have a cairn erected in memory of his ancestors who once lived here. After the Clearances. For a time. His cairn, in their honour, remains.

Hopefully, the Bradbea folk found a better life on more welcome, if stranger shores.

The Highlands are now noticeably bare of folk. Added to which the remaining population is ageing. For Sale signs litter the landscape and stone ruins of aged crofts cover bracken buried fields.

Much of the land that is not owned by forestry or the National trust and other charitable trusts is, today, still owned by the nobility. The Duke of Buccleuh owns most: his holdings spread over four times the size of the city of Edinburgh. The Duchess of Windsor owns the next biggest chunk. Then come various Earls, Duchesses and Countesses, who pretty much share the ownership of the rest of the land.

Today, they are likely still not happy: wishing their land sprouted oil wells, not sheep. Which seems to be the cash cow these days in Scotland.

Not that they probably really know. Most of them live, as they always have, in the big cities, so are not very often even about.