Applecross peninsula

by Kate Forbes

IT IS AN ‘unnamed road’ on Google Maps, this stretch of tarmac to the village of my grandmother’s family. Built relatively recently, the single track threads its way round the peninsula – the tiny villages of Ardheslaig, Fearnbeg, Fearnmore, Arrina, Lonbain, Camusterrach and, the now infamous, Culduie, irregular stitches at Scotland’s seam. A light in a house catches the eye, rare in this abandoned landscape.

Don’t be fooled into believing it was always thus. This was a well-populated well-populated area, until it was abandoned by communities who waited and waited for a road; communities who had so little autonomy, self-determination and ownership that the only choice they could exercise was to leave. Leave they did, until empty houses were the only clue there had been anything except miles of coarse heather and jagged rocks.