A crofting parish in Strath Fleet
Rogart
Railway, river and road meet at Pittentrail, while paths, crofts and community landmarks spread into the surrounding hills.
- Best for
- Local history and Highland walking
- Give it
- A half day, or longer for the drove road
- Don't miss
- The Mart's surviving sale ring and tiered seating
The Fox verdict
A dispersed Highland place with a strong community centre
Rogart rewards visitors who connect its Far North Line stop, restored livestock Mart, church history and routes across Strath Fleet.
Pittentrail supplies the practical centre, but Rogart's character lies in the wider crofting parish. The signed Round Rogart Path offers the approachable circuit; the mostly pathless Rogart Drove Road is the demanding alternative. Indoors, the community-restored Mart carries the parish's livestock history into markets, exhibitions and performances.
Where to go
Places in Rogart
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesRound Rogart Path
A signed circuit that crosses the River Fleet on the bridge at Dalmore before returning to Pittentrail through Rovie.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Around 3 hours
- Locality
- Starting at the shop
Rogart Post Office and General Store
The village general store and post office, one of the basic services recorded for the settlement.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Around 15 minutes
- Locality
- Pittentrail
Loch Fleet National Nature Reserve
A reserve of tidal scenery, pinewoods and dunes, with wildlife including ospreys, harbour seals, otters and wintering wildfowl.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Around 2 hours
- Locality
- Near the A9 east of Rogart
- Access
- The Balblair Wood Trail is mostly wide and level and reaches a loch-view wildlife hide; north-shore access is via Golspie.
Food & drink
1 placeMarket at the Mart
A community market whose past mix has included local crafts, art, plants, pies, cheeses, fresh sourdough, honey and weaving.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Around 60 minutes
- Locality
- At the restored Rogart Mart
- Access
- The market runs on listed dates; past stall examples are not a guaranteed current stall list.
Walks & outdoors
1 placeRogart Drove Road
A demanding heritage route past traces of cattle traffic, cleared townships, Monbuie drovers' stance and the broch at Dun-garbh-airigh.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Around 4 hours
- Locality
- From an unclassified road off the A839 to Invershin
- Access
- Most of the route has no path and crosses heather moor; fitness and strong navigation are essential.
History & heritage
3 placesRogart Station
A Far North Line request stop with eight parking spaces, some step-free access to all platforms and an informal outdoor collection of railway memorabilia nearby.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Around 20 minutes
- Locality
- Pittentrail
- Access
- Follow the current on-platform and ScotRail request-stop instructions.
Rogart Mart
The community-restored former livestock Mart is now a venue for music, theatre, markets and art exhibitions, with a permanent heritage display and the old sale ring and tiered seating still in place.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Around 60 minutes
- Locality
- Rogart
St Callan's Church and Burial Ground
A simple harled church dated 1777, with a late-19th-century bellcote, panelled hexagonal pulpit, plain pine pews and stained glass in the east windows.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Around 45 minutes
- Locality
- Rogart
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Three ways to explore Rogart
Signature outings
Make the Round Rogart circuit
Follow the signed 4.5-mile route through Corry, Rhemusaig and Pittentrail Hill, crossing the River Fleet at Dalmore before returning through Rovie.
See the Mart's second life
Look from the surviving tiered seats into the old sale ring, now part of a community venue for performances, exhibitions and markets.
Find Callan in the landscape
Visit the harled 1777 church and connect its bellcote, pulpit and stained glass with the local tradition of the seventh-century missionary Callan.
The village story
Rogart Village Guide
A request-stop arrival opens onto a crofting parish of working routes, community history and the long landscape of Strath Fleet.
A Request Stop in Strath Fleet
At Rogart station the train does not stop unless you ask it to, following the instructions posted on the platform. It is a request stop on the Far North Line, in the settlement of Pittentrail, with eight parking spaces and a platform reached with some step-free access. Around the station someone has gathered an open-air collection of railway memorabilia, and a few retired carriages stand nearby, put to use as places to sleep.
Pittentrail is the closest Rogart comes to a centre. The rest is a crofting parish spread thinly a few miles inland, about halfway along Strath Fleet between Loch Fleet and Lairg. The A839, the railway and the River Fleet all run together through the strath, and the crofts climb away from them into the hills. The village is four miles from the A9 at The Mound and eleven miles east of Lairg; the 906 bus, run by Macleod's Coaches, links the Post Office with Lairg, Golspie and points beyond on selected journeys, stopping on the main road by the Spar; check the timetable before you travel.
Village Provisions and the Mart Market
The Pittentrail Inn has been the village pub, a granite building from the 1850s with a public bar, a room for eating and rooms to stay in — worth checking it's still open first. One visitor reported a Sunday roast that came with a spiced gravy, which is not what most people mean by a roast dinner, and is the more interesting for it.
For groceries there is the Rogart Post Office and General Store, along with the Spar, a petrol station and a garage. Through the season the restored Rogart Mart also holds a community market, where past stalls have brought sourdough, honey, cheeses, pies, plants, crafts and weaving.
Paths, Drove Roads and a Reborn Mart
If you want a walk from the door, the Round Rogart Path is a signed four-and-a-half-mile circuit that begins at the shop and runs through Corry, Rhemusaig and Pittentrail Hill, crossing the River Fleet by the bridge at Dalmore before coming back through Rovie. The Rogart Drove Road is a harder proposition altogether: 13.2 kilometres of mostly pathless heather moor towards Invershin, past a drovers' stance at Monbuie and a broch at Dun-garbh-airigh, following the line by which cattle were once walked south. It needs fitness and proper navigation.
The Mart is the building the community bought and restored. Five local farmers persuaded the firm of Reith and Anderson to set it up in 1936, and in its best years as many as twelve thousand lambs changed hands in a single day. It closed after the foot-and-mouth outbreak of 2001, was bought by the community in 2018, and reopened on 8 August 2022 as an arts and cultural centre, its doors opened by the then Duke of Rothesay. "It's wonderful to see the Mart back into use in the heart of the community," said the project coordinator, Kate Roach. Music, theatre, exhibitions and markets now use the space, and a permanent local-heritage display sits alongside them.
Callan, Clans and Local Lives
St Callan's Church stands a little apart, looking out over low, marshy ground ringed by the hills of Little Rogart and Rheidchalmie. It is a harled oblong of 1777, probably designed by James Boag, with a late-nineteenth-century bellcote. Inside are a panelled hexagonal pulpit and sounding board, plain pine pews and stained glass in the east windows. The Christian ground here is much older: it is traced to Callan, a seventh-century missionary, and a local story holds that the site and the glebe boundary were fixed by two white horses drawing a Bible and a heavy stone.
History is not far under the surface. The Battle of Torran Dubh was fought in the strath in 1517, about a mile north-east of the station. Andrew MacDonald was born in Rogart in 1721, fought at Plassey in 1757, was severely wounded and left for dead, recovered to serve in North America including the Quebec campaign, and came home to see out his years here in 1798. For nearly a century the village kept a tweed shop at Bank, where Angus Pirie wove on two looms with a wider blanket loom upstairs, and where his daughter Cathy carried the work on after him.
Loch Fleet and the Old Sale Ring
Towards the coast, Loch Fleet National Nature Reserve has pinewoods, dunes and tidal scenery, with ospreys, harbour seals and otters; the Balblair Wood Trail is mostly wide and flat, with a few gentle, muddy stretches after rain, and ends at a hide with a view over the loch. Golspie lies nine miles east, and Dunrobin Castle a mile beyond it, with eighteen rooms, formal gardens, a museum and a tearoom.
Back at the Mart, the old sale ring and its tiered seating have survived the change of use. The seats that once looked down on a night's worth of lambs now face a stage.
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A guide with a point of view
Written from research. Edited for real journeys.
Use the Official site links for live practical details, then use this guide for context, ideas and room to explore.
Sources
Every place on this page is checked against a published source. Each entry links the record we used and names who publishes it.
- Rogart Station — trove.scot other published source record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Rogart Mart — rogartdevelopmenttrust.com operator, sector body or destination organisation
- St Callan's Church and Burial Ground — portal.historicenvironment.scot statutory register or public authority
- Round Rogart Path — rogartdevelopmenttrust.com operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Rogart Drove Road — scotways.com other published source
- Market at the Mart — rogartdevelopmenttrust.com other published source
- Rogart Post Office and General Store — postoffice.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Loch Fleet National Nature Reserve — nature.scot statutory register or public authority