The Highland Clearances Trail

The Highland Clearances: one of the most controversial episodes in Scottish history. In the Highlands and Islands the legacy is still immediate and resentful, exacerbated by modern historians’ generalisation of experiences and denial of the scale of evictions.

In The Highland Clearances Trail Rob Gibson presents the real past of the Highlands, full of its complexities and local variations. From the Strathrusdale Sheep Drive to the Battle of the Braes, he has brought together the story of the Clearances from a Highland perspective, using evidence from Napier Commission reports, bardic poetry and oral accounts.

This book systematically documents the Highland Clearances of the last 200 years, guiding the reader round sites of particular evictions and memorials and providing facts and figures which show the true extent of the destruction of Highland communities. Ordnance Survey grid references and information on access, historical notes and a selected bibliography provide a resource for visitors and students alike. An earlier version of this book was regarded as ‘a pioneer in eco-tourism’ because there is no substitute to visiting the very places where these dark deeds took place.