MACLEODS OF ASSYNT

Thanking Nan profusely, we continued on our journey. Scott’s great aunt Babs, who had also left for Glasgow, had told her daughter ‘wee Babs’ that the MacLeods were originally from Elphin. Both Mrs McBain and now Nan MacLeod had confirmed this (though it’s not clear whether they knew it for sure, or we were simply hearing the same story from different people). Elphin lies further south, between Badnaban and Ullapool, so south we went.

Elphin and neighbouring Knockan were inhabited by two tacksmen and 24 tenants until 1812, when the area was the only inland area of Assynt to be chosen for the victims of clearances. The area was divided into 58 crofts but in the 1840s they suffered terribly in the potato famine and the Duke of Sutherland decided to clear them again. They were offered free passage to Canada or resettlement on the coast. They resisted fiercely, burning their eviction notices and fighting the sheriff’s men and they were subsequently left in peace, though most did in fact leave of their own accord. Now it’s virtually deserted, with only a few Highland cattle grazing in its lonely fields.

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