SUTHERLAND, Scotland
Scottish Highlanders are people who have been variously described as dour, unfriendly, serious, humorless and even surly, and Highlanders themselves might admit they tend to carry grudges. (Full disclosure: I'm married to one, albeit several generations removed.) When it comes to the English or the Lowlanders (southern Scots), the grudges have been nursed for hundreds of years and border on hatred. The last cruely suffered by the Highlanders had to do with the Highland Land Clearances, which took place in the late 18th Century and into the 19th Century.
Landowners evicted tenant farmers by the tens of thousands.
Wealthy English and Lowland land owners decided the land could better serve them financially by clearing it to raise sheep and went about evicting all the tenant farmers from their land. Tens of thousands of people were forced to leave, sometimes on very short notice. Violence ensued as homes were ransacked and burned, people beaten and even killed.
Metaphor for power: Duke of Sutherland's Dunrobin Castle.
Vivid reminders of the Land Clearances remain today as one drives through the countryside. Empty shells of stone farmhouses are scattered throughout the landscape, and perhaps there is no better metaphor for the power wielded by the landed gentry than Dunrobin Castle, the homeof the Duke of Sutherland, one of the most loathed men of that period and responsible for much of the suffering. The Sutherlands at one time were among the largest landowners in Western Europe. Dunrobin , a replica of a French chateau, looking out over the North Sea, is the largest house in the northern Highlands and one of Britain's oldest continuously inhabited homes. Part of the castle is open to the public and interesting to tour.
The Highlands are starkly beautiful, a paradise of untouched scenic mountains, lochs, seascapes, forests, moors, valleys, preserved history and bountiful wildlife. Yet it remains sparsely populated, for once having been forced off their land, few people ever returned. Most emigrated to coastal areas or even to Australia, Nova Scotia and the Southeastern United States. A sad legacy for so beautiful an area.
Photos top to bottom:
Deserted farmhouses
Dunrobin Castle
Landowners evicted tenant farmers by the tens of thousands.
Wealthy English and Lowland land owners decided the land could better serve them financially by clearing it to raise sheep and went about evicting all the tenant farmers from their land. Tens of thousands of people were forced to leave, sometimes on very short notice. Violence ensued as homes were ransacked and burned, people beaten and even killed.
Metaphor for power: Duke of Sutherland's Dunrobin Castle.
Vivid reminders of the Land Clearances remain today as one drives through the countryside. Empty shells of stone farmhouses are scattered throughout the landscape, and perhaps there is no better metaphor for the power wielded by the landed gentry than Dunrobin Castle, the homeof the Duke of Sutherland, one of the most loathed men of that period and responsible for much of the suffering. The Sutherlands at one time were among the largest landowners in Western Europe. Dunrobin , a replica of a French chateau, looking out over the North Sea, is the largest house in the northern Highlands and one of Britain's oldest continuously inhabited homes. Part of the castle is open to the public and interesting to tour.
The Highlands are starkly beautiful, a paradise of untouched scenic mountains, lochs, seascapes, forests, moors, valleys, preserved history and bountiful wildlife. Yet it remains sparsely populated, for once having been forced off their land, few people ever returned. Most emigrated to coastal areas or even to Australia, Nova Scotia and the Southeastern United States. A sad legacy for so beautiful an area.
Photos top to bottom:
Deserted farmhouses
Dunrobin Castle
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