The double-chocolate fudgy cookies are made in Croy, at Pure Bakery Highland, a plant-based bakery with a takeaway shop in the village. The same kitchen turns out maple-syrup-and-pecan and Smarties cookies, brownies, blondies, brookies, cookie pies, rocky roads and biscuit slices, all vegan, with some gluten-free options. It also supplies the Milk Barn café along the road.
Croy has lost its fuel station, its recycling point and its shop. ANTA, the Scottish interiors company, keeps a retail unit here selling rugs, throws, cushions, pottery and gifts, including Scottish-made pieces. Beyond that the everyday shopping happens elsewhere: Nairn for the coast and the high street, Inverness for anything city-sized. Croy sits roughly halfway between the two, on the B9091.
The setting is farmland sloping gently down from the Moray Firth towards the upper Nairnside farms and the River Nairn in its glen, with native and commercial woods among the fields and old estates. The woods hold red squirrels, pine martens and crested tits; deer and badgers work the farmland. You are not guaranteed any of them, but the habitat is there.
Two mapped walks link Croy with its surroundings. Liz's Loop is 5.4 km with 71 metres of climbing, running from Tornagrain along Croy Road, through the village to the community garden, past the parish church and into Lochandinty Woods before turning back. It is named for a resident, Liz, whose generosity helped the Walking & Wheeling Event. The Croy–Holm Rose loop is shorter at 4.4 km, beginning at the community garden, passing Pure Bakery and the hall before crossing the B9091 to field paths and a signed trail around Holm Rose House, with a short detour down to the River Nairn. Take the B9091 crossing seriously; the pavements are incomplete and the signposting is patchy.
The parish church is Category B listed, dated 1764 and repaired in 1829, a plain rectangular Presbyterian building with pointed Y-traceried windows, a birdcage bellcote and a stone ball finial. Inside there is a bowed west gallery, grained timber fittings and 19th-century monuments chiefly to the Roses of Kilravock and the Davidsons of Cantray. The listing also takes in the burial ground and a watch-house from around 1800, with bull's-eye vents. Before the Reformation Croy was a prebend of Elgin Cathedral, dedicated to St Duthac. The former manse, designed in 1855 by William Lawrie, is also listed, with boat-shaped gables, a Moorish gablet and ball finials.
The older history here tends to turn up underfoot. In the spring of 1875 a girl planting potato drills at Mains of Croy found the Croy Hoard: an early-9th-century silver penannular brooch, knitted silver wire, glass and amber beads, part of a bronze balance and a penny of Coenwulf of Mercia. A second group came to light soon after, including a coin of Æthelwulf of Wessex. The objects are in National Museums Scotland now. On the night of 15 April 1746 the Jacobite army passed close to Croy on its failed march to surprise the Government camp near Nairn, the night before Culloden.
The battlefield is about seven miles west, and the Clava Cairns, a Bronze Age cemetery of passage graves, ring cairns and standing stones some 4,000 years old, sit on a terrace above the River Nairn nearby. Cawdor Tavern, a country pub and restaurant serving modern Scottish food, is at Cawdor. Cawdor also has the castle, its gardens and woodland trails, and a Courtyard Café that cooks with estate beef, game and garden produce. Kilravock Castle, a keep licensed in 1460 and enlarged in the 17th century, stands in the same stretch of country.
Getting here, the nearest railhead is Inverness Airport station at Dalcross, step-free and with free parking, though unstaffed and without toilets. Buses 253 and 1A both call, but check the timetables against your dates before relying on them.
The village hall was built in 1907 with local money and a Carnegie grant, on land given by the Kilravock estate, and it still holds the scouts, the karate class and the rest of the week's meetings. The war memorial beside it went up in 1919 with 27 names from the First World War, and 11 more were added after the Second. They are the names of a small place, gathered on the green at the middle of it.