Fairytale Splendour
CHARLES DOUGLAS EXPLORES THE SPLENDID AND BEAUTIFUL RESIDENCE
OF THE SUTHERLANDS, DUNROBIN CASTLE, AND LOOK INTO THE FAMILY’S
COLOURFUL HISTORY
Since the 18th century, the Sutherlands of Dunrobin Castle, near Golspie, have had a bad press. But that does not mean to say that they have largely deserved it. Unfortunately, memories in the Highlands are long, and the spectre of the Land Clearances of the 19th century, when tenant crofters were forcibly removed from their ancestral plots, still casts a long shadow.
It was the marriage of the only daughter of the 18th Earl of Sutherland to George Granville Leveson-Gower, an Englishman, which created the problem. An enormously wealthy man, Leveson-Gower, a prominent Liberal politician, became Marquess of Stafford in 1803 and, with the best possible intentions, announced his wish to improve the lot of his wife’s tenantry, who were spread across the vast, often inaccessible territories of the far north-east of Scotland. Alas, Lord Stafford’s well-meaning initiatives were to backfire horribly.
Although living in primitive black houses in abject poverty, the majority of the 5,000 inhabitants of the Caithness and Sutherland region were happy with their lot. Their ancestors had lived in this way for centuries. Such settled communities had no desire to move to the alternative modern housing which their landlord was providing for them, along with employment, on the coast.
When they refused to budge, it was the beginning of one of the saddest episodes in Highland folklore. The speed and brutality employed by Lord Stafford’s agents following the orders of their employer was to crea.....
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By Charles Douglas
Section : Historic Houses
Page number : 15
