A community museum in Bettyhill connecting Clan Mackay, crofting life and the Sutherland Clearances through local objects and testimony.
People and clans in this story
Clans and houses: Clan Mackay
A museum inside the story
Strathnaver Museum occupies the former parish church of St Columba. Its pulpit is associated with eviction notices read to the congregation, bringing estate policy into the same room where the affected community gathered.
Clearance in Mackay Country
The galleries follow Strathnaver from the emergence of Clan Mackay through crofting life and some of the most severe episodes of the Sutherland Clearances. Local objects keep the people displaced from becoming anonymous figures in a national summary.
Evidence and political aftermath
The museum also covers testimony given to the Napier Commission in 1883. That later inquiry belongs to the history of crofters organising and giving evidence about land conditions, not to the first phase of eviction itself.
What to look for while you're here
- The pulpit from which eviction notices were read.
- The Clan Mackay collection and the relationship between kinship, tenants and place.
- Objects and testimony that identify affected families rather than treating the Clearances only as statistics.
Before you go
- Currently open April to October, Monday to Saturday; closed Sundays.
- Last entry is 30 minutes before closing.
- Sheep may be present in the glebe field and along the coastal strip.