Intriguing and authentic Mary Ann’s Cottage gives visitors a glimpse of crofting life in bygone times.

It’s named for Mary-Ann Calder, who lived here until 1990 by which time she was aged 93.

The cottage had been built by her grandfather in 1850, and much of those 140 years seem to have been fascinatingly frozen in time here: and family mementoes look on as antique rocking chairs huddle around a metal teapot on a blackened hearth.

Crofts

Crofts are small parcels of agricultural land unique to the Highlands and Islands. They originated during the Highland Clearances in the early 1800s, when landlords forcibly removed tenants from their lands to make way for sheep farming. The displaced people were relocated to poor coastal land and became dependent on wages from fishing or collecting kelp (used to make alkali). As these sources of income withered, crofters endured extreme hardship, sometimes famine - causing many to migrate to factories in Scotland’s big cities or emigrate to the New World.