Shieldaig

Lochside wildlife and the village pub

Whitewashed houses line the shore of Loch Shieldaig, water on one side and rising ground behind. Offshore sits Shieldaig Island, where white-tailed sea eagles nest. Otters work the shallows, and pine martens and golden eagles are among the wildlife recorded in the wider glen behind the village.

The Shieldaig Bar & Coastal Kitchen faces the water. The bar downstairs is the informal room; upstairs the Coastal Kitchen looks out over the loch and cooks what comes off the jetty. Fish and chips, mussels, scallops, a seafood platter and smoked salmon share the menu with a vegetarian pizza, and the taps pour real ales from the An Teallach Brewery. It is the village's pub.

Nanny's and food from the jetty

Near the main pier, Nanny's has been run by Lynn Cameron since 2008. It began in a small corrugated-iron shop and now occupies a purpose-built café on the front. The hot-smoked-salmon chowder is the house dish. There is also a squat-lobster-tail sandwich made from one local fisherman's catch, smoked salmon from the Loch Torridon Smoke House served with cream cheese and Viv's dill sauce, and a Great Glen pork-and-venison salami toastie with Scottish cheddar and apple chutney. Children get simple food, colouring books and pens. Cameron describes the place as "a warm highland welcome, friendly service, tasty home cooked food."

For provisions, Shieldaig Stores keeps the everyday essentials and, more usefully out here, maps and compasses, stamps and the community's annual information booklet. At the far end of the village the Loch Torridon Smokehouse sells its smoked salmon direct. The Tigh an Eilean Hotel serves breakfast and dinner built around seafood carried, again, from the jetty to the kitchen door.

From naval plan to open-air worship

The village was laid out in the early nineteenth century to raise and train sailors for the Napoleonic Wars. The war ended before any of them were called up, and crofting and fishing took over instead. The name comes from an Old Norse word meaning Herring Bay.

Religion has left the sharper marks. The Parliamentary church of 1827 sat three hundred; after the Disruption of 1843 the breakaway congregation worshipped for about thirty years at an open-air site called An Cos, the Crevice, where local tradition holds that gatherings reached a thousand, some arriving by boat from Applecross, Gairloch, Skye and Raasay. The wooden preaching ark they used is now in Gairloch Museum. Thomas Telford designed the manse, Kirkburn, a low harled house of 1825–27.

Walks, roads and recreation

Walkers start beside the primary school for the Shieldaig Peninsula circuit, four kilometres over aspen woodland and Lewisian gneiss more than three billion years old, with a short chain-assisted scramble near the point and views across Loch Torridon. A longer walk of eight and a half kilometres follows the loch's south shore from the Torridon Inn, with Beinn Alligin filling the skyline.

Getting here takes some commitment. The nearest station is Strathcarron, about nineteen miles and forty minutes away on single-track roads; the 702 bus links the two Monday to Saturday, though not often. Behind the school there is a football pitch, an all-weather court and a play area.

The mermaid report

In 1851 a Caledonian Mercury report told of local women, alerted by noisy gulls, finding what they took to be a mermaid on the rocks nearby.