Suisnish, Isle of Skye: The atmospheric ruins of a Clearance village

Beauty now reigns in a tragic spot where hundreds of villagers suffered during the Clearance

Suisnich, Isle of Skye
Solitary houses still stand at Suisnish
(Image credit: Getty Images)

A visit to the ruins of Suisnish, one of the most haunting of all the Clearance villages, involves a five-mile walk from the beach at Camas Malag, past waterfalls and old marble quarries.

In a glorious setting, with roofless cottages and views over Loch Slapin, it is incredibly moving, particularly as we know hundreds of villagers traipsed through snow, their homes razed, and many died.

Derelict cottage at Suisnich

Visiting geologist Archibald Geikie described the scene in 1853: ‘A strange wailing sound reached my ears. I could see a long and motley procession winding along the road... A cry of grief went up to Heaven, the long plaintive wail, like a funeral coronach. The sound re-echoed through the wide valley of Strath in one long prolonged note of desolation.’


Spar Cave Gorge, Isle of Skye.
(Image credit: Alamy)

Spar Cave: The cathedral-like hiding place on the Isle of Skye, accessed via a cliff face and a ravine

Spar Cave on the Strathaird peninsula was recommended my no less a figure than Walter Scott, yet remains quiet and

The Falls of Glomach are one of the highest and most isolated waterfalls in Britain.
(Image credit: Alamy)

Falls of Glomach, Ross and Cromarty: Britain's most isolated, and perhaps most spectacular waterfall

Annunciata Elwes's Secret Britain series looks at Falls of Glomach, one of the highest waterfalls in the UK.

Annunciata Elwes

Annunciata grew up in the wilds of Lancashire and now lives in Hampshire with a husband, two daughters and an awful pug called Parsley. She’s been floating round the Country Life office for more than a decade, her work winning the Property Magazine of the Year Award in 2022 (Property Press Awards). Before that, she had a two-year stint writing ‘all kinds of fiction’ for The Sunday Times Travel Magazine, worked in internal comms for Country Life’s publisher (which has had many names in recent years but was then called IPC Media), and spent another year researching for a historical biographer, whose then primary focus was Graham Greene and John Henry Newman and whose filing system was a collection of wardrobes and chests of drawers filled with torn scraps of paper. During this time, she regularly gave tours of 17th-century Milton Manor, Oxfordshire, which may or may not have been designed by Inigo Jones, and co-founded a literary, art and music festival, at which Johnny Flynn headlined. When not writing and editing for Country Life, Annunciata is also a director of TIN MAN ART, a contemporary art gallery founded in 2021 by her husband, James Elwes.

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