Stromeferry

The Sign and the Narrows

The road sign at the top of the hill says "Stromeferry (No Ferry)." It has said so since 1970, when the ferry across Loch Carron stopped running and the A890 opened around the head of the loch instead. The sign points down towards the water regardless.

What it points to is a scattering of houses on the south shore, at the narrows where the sea-loch pinches tight. Directly across the water stand the remains of Strome Castle: a tower and a hall, built by the MacDonalds of Glengarry in the fifteenth century and blown up in 1602 after one dispute too many with the Mackenzies. The castle was not reoccupied. Behind it, mountains.

The Station and the Railway

The station is the centre of things, such as things have a centre here. It sits on ScotRail's Kyle Line between Inverness and Kyle of Lochalsh, with twenty free parking spaces, a waiting room and help points, and no staff, ticket machine, toilets or refreshments. Buy your ticket online in advance; otherwise ask the onboard staff.

The railway transformed the village. The Dingwall and Skye Railway reached here in 1870 and made Stromeferry a terminus, where steamers for Skye and Lewis met trains carrying passengers, mail, fish and cattle. When the line was extended to Kyle of Lochalsh in 1897, most of that traffic went with it. Before all that, in 1803, James Hogg came through and recorded that "the ferryman charged sixpence and a dram of whisky."

Riot and the Village Today

The terminus had one dramatic day. On 3 June 1883, more than two hundred fishermen occupied it to stop fish being unloaded on a Sunday. Ten of them were imprisoned, troops were held ready at Fort George, and the Lord Advocate concluded it was doubtful whether Sunday transport of perishable fish could be stopped under the law as it stood.

There is no pub, no shop and no post office; the nearest facilities are beyond seven miles. The village hall, shared with Achmore, is the only public building, and it runs events, classes, a repair café and a footpath group. For a walk, Strome Wood begins about five hundred metres from the station: a waymarked loop of a mile and a quarter, an hour or so, with steep sections, steps and mud, and picnic tables at viewpoints looking over the loch to the castle and the old ferry line.

Food Along the Kyle Line

Food means a short drive. Plockton, five miles away and a stop on the same line, has the Plockton Inn, where creel-caught prawns landed at the village pier sit alongside oysters, mussels and fish; dogs are welcome in the bar. Kyle of Lochalsh, a little further, has Beth's Deli on the harbour slipway and Lochalsh Butchers on Station Road.

The Hotel’s Literary Afterlife

The derelict hotel that once stood in the village burned in 1993 and later turned up in an Iain Banks novel as the scene of a murder. What remains is quieter: the loch, the trains, the castle across the water, and a sign directing you to a ferry that no longer runs.