Trotternish coast
Flodigarry
A scattered crofting township below the Quiraing, facing a fossil-bearing shore, Eilean Flodigarry and the Minch.
- Best for
- Fossil-bearing shores and Trotternish hill walks
- Give it
- An hour by the shore or a full hill day
- Don't miss
- Views across Eilean Flodigarry to the Torridon mountains
The Fox verdict
Fossils below the Quiraing
Flodigarry brings a moving Jurassic shore, steep Trotternish ground and crofting memory into one small township.
Start with the short shore walk, choose the longer Fingal's Pinnacles or Quiraing circuit when conditions suit, and use the hotel or nearby Staffin for food. Kilmuir adds the Skye Museum of Island Life to the wider visit.
Where to go
Places in Flodigarry
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesFlodigarry Hotel Restaurant, Lounge and Whisky Bar
Flodigarry's country-house hotel has a lounge, whisky bar and sea-view terrace, serving Scottish recipes built around named Skye and Highland suppliers.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 90 minutes
- Locality
- Flodigarry itself
The Hungry Gull
A family-run independent brunch café and community-event space serving in-house baking, locally roasted coffee and wholesome brunch, alongside local art and crafts.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around one hour
- Locality
- Staffin Community Hall
Kilmuir and Stenscholl Church of Scotland
A Category B listed whitewashed T-plan church of 1828–29 with round-headed openings and a birdcage belfry; after its 2020 renovation it also contains local-history interpretation and community workspace.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 30 minutes
- Locality
- Staffin
Food & drink
1 placeColumba 1400 Café and Shop
A café and gift shop whose income supports the charity's work with young people, serving home-made soup, toasties, home baking and more substantial lunches, with a terrace and Wi-Fi.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around one hour
- Locality
- Staffin
Walks & outdoors
4 placesFlodigarry Fossils Walk
A path crosses grazing land to an active-landslip shore where ammonites and belemnites may be found in grey shale-like rock, with views across Eilean Flodigarry to the Torridon mountains.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow about one hour
- Locality
- Flodigarry shore
- Access
- Parking by the red phone box is limited, and the shoreline boulders are very slippery. Interesting fossil finds should be reported to Staffin Dinosaur Museum.
Fingal's Pinnacles Circuit
A 278-metre climb follows the former route to early-20th-century diatomite workings before exploring lochs, the cliffs of Leac nan Fionn and quieter pinnacles below the Quiraing.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow 2.5–3 hours
- Locality
- from Loch Langaig
- Access
- The outward path is good, but the return crosses pathless moor and steep grass.
Quiraing Hill Circuit
A four-mile circuit with 374 metres of ascent passes the Prison and Needle, with views over the Table, Staffin Bay and the Torridon hills.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow 3–4 hours
- Locality
- summit of the Staffin–Uig minor road
- Access
- The path becomes rough and rocky with a minor scramble, and the high return is exposed in bad weather.
An Corran Dinosaur Tracks
Dinosaur tracks on the Staffin shore where Cathy and Paul Booth found one print in 2001 and Dr Neil Clark and Dugald Ross subsequently found another 17.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 45 minutes
- Locality
- An Corran, Staffin
- Access
- Tracks are sometimes exposed around mid-tide or after winter storms. The rocks are extremely slippery, and sand or seaweed often hides the prints.
History & heritage
1 placeSkye Museum of Island Life
A museum of eight thatched cottages whose Old Croft House remained occupied until 1957; the museum opened in 1965 and was founded by crofter and cultural historian Jonathan MacDonald MBE.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 75 minutes
- Locality
- Kilmuir
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Three ways to explore Flodigarry
Signature outings
Follow the diatomite route
Take the three-mile Fingal's Pinnacles circuit from Loch Langaig past the former route to early-20th-century diatomite workings and towards Leac nan Fionn.
Look for dinosaur tracks
At An Corran, tracks sometimes emerge around mid-tide or after winter storms, though sand and seaweed often hide them.
Explore the thatched cottages
The Skye Museum of Island Life gathers eight thatched cottages, including the Old Croft House that remained occupied until 1957.
The village story
Flodigarry Village Guide
A fossil-bearing shore, steep Trotternish walks and the story of Flora MacDonald frame this scattered crofting township.
Fossils on a Moving Shore
The rock that comes down onto the Flodigarry shore is fossil-bearing, grey and shale-like. Ammonites and belemnites work loose from a landslip that is still moving, at the foot of a coast where soft Jurassic layers are being pressed down by heavier lava above. A path of about a mile crosses grazing land from a red phone box, where parking runs out quickly, to a rocky beach. The boulders are slippery. The views run across Eilean Flodigarry to the Torridon mountains on the mainland. Anything unusual you turn up is meant to go to the Staffin Dinosaur Museum.
This is a scattered crofting township on the north-east corner of Trotternish, below the Quiraing and facing the Minch. Local memory holds that potatoes were once planted where the sea now reaches.
Dining Below the Quiraing
The one place to eat and drink in Flodigarry itself is the Flodigarry Hotel, a country house designed by Ross & Macbeth in 1892 and turned into a hotel in 1928. It has a lounge, a whisky bar and a terrace looking out to sea. The kitchen leans on named local suppliers: hand-dived Skye scallops from Ben Oakes, 35-day matured Highland beef, Skye venison, Kilmuir lamb. A dinner might run to a Hebridean pork and Stornoway black-pudding Scotch pie, lamb kidney with lamb-fat skirlie, rumble-de-thumps and turnip, or whole baked sole for two. Lunch has included a haggis Scotch egg with whisky mustard and a smoked-haddock and Isle of Mull toastie.
For walkers, the ground rises quickly toward the Quiraing. Fingal's Pinnacles is a three-mile circuit from Loch Langaig, climbing 278 metres past the line of an old route to early-twentieth-century diatomite workings and up towards the cliffs of Leac nan Fionn. The full Quiraing circuit starts higher still, at the top of the Staffin–Uig road rather than in the village, and passes the formations known as the Prison, the Needle and the Table. The return crosses pathless moor, and in bad weather the tops are exposed.
Staffin Stops and Island Connections
For coffee and lunch you go four miles south to Staffin, along the A855. The Hungry Gull does brunch and in-house baking out of the community hall. Columba 1400 runs a café and gift shop whose takings support its work with young people, with soup, toasties, home baking, a terrace and Wi-Fi. Down at the community-owned harbour, Andi Dunkel and Paul Milne roast small batches at Corran Coffee from beans grown as far off as Uganda, Rwanda and Colombia; the harbour also has public toilets, showers, bike hire and a sea sauna. On the same shore, at An Corran, dinosaur footprints surface around mid-tide or after winter storms. Cathy and Paul Booth found the first in 2001, and Dr Neil Clark and Dugald Ross went on to find seventeen more.
Buses 57A and 57C run from the Flodigarry Road End to Portree through Kilmuir and Uig; Portree itself is about twenty miles south, and the nearest railhead is well off the island at Kyle of Lochalsh.
Flora MacDonald and Crofting Memory
Behind the hotel stands a cottage traditionally associated with Flora MacDonald, though the building's own age and identity are disputed. She married Allan MacDonald at Flodigarry on 6 November 1750; the wedding festivities lasted most of a week, and she is said to have lived here until the family moved to Kingsburgh in 1772. Samuel Johnson, who met her later on his Hebridean tour, called her "a woman of soft features, gentle manners, kind soul and elegant presence." In the hotel grounds sits Dun Flodigarry, a drystone broch of around two thousand years ago, its walls up to four metres thick; the people who dug it in the early 1980s thought it had been abandoned before it was ever finished.
Flora is buried a few miles further round the coast at Kilmuir, in a cemetery near the eight thatched cottages of the Skye Museum of Island Life. One of them, the Old Croft House, was still lived in until 1957.
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A guide with a point of view
Written from research. Edited for real journeys.
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Sources
Every place on this page is checked against a published source. Each entry links the record we used and names who publishes it.
- Flodigarry Fossils Walk — skyeecomuseum.co.uk other published source
- Fingal's Pinnacles Circuit — walkhighlands.co.uk other published source
- Quiraing Hill Circuit — walkhighlands.co.uk other published source
- Flodigarry Hotel Restaurant, Lounge and Whisky Bar — flodigarry-hotel-skye.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- The Hungry Gull — thehungrygull.com operator, sector body or destination organisation record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Columba 1400 Café and Shop — columba1400.com operator, sector body or destination organisation
- An Corran Dinosaur Tracks — geosites.scottishgeologytrust.org other published source
- Skye Museum of Island Life — skyemuseum.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Kilmuir and Stenscholl Church of Scotland — her.highland.gov.uk statutory register or public authority