A Backies Walk

We took a walk today which we hadn't followed in some months, one which we used to take regularly when we lived at the northern end of the village. The route took us up into the crofting community of Backies, originally communal land which, during the clearances of the late 18th century, was divided into small parcels and settled with people evicted from the more fertile areas, which were rented out as 'sheep walks'.

Relatively few of the crofts are now worked, their land having been consolidated into more viable farms, of which this neat property is one of the two biggest.

On our way up to the open croft land we followed a well-maintained mountain bike track which winds through a variety of habitats, from well-established plantations of pine and spruce to relatively recent deciduous woodland and....

....areas of ancient oak woodland. This part of the walk is usually one of the best for fungi but we found none.

The human history of the area goes back thousands of years before the clearances. Buried amongst the trees is this bracken-covered mound, an ancient Iron Age round house or 'broch', a type of fortified building which is most common in northern Scotland and the northern and western isles. There are three of these structures within a few miles of Golspie.

I have mixed feelings about the building work seen in this picture. It shows one of the croft houses in its parcel of poor land being redeveloped for modern use. The ruin it used to be was a stark reminder of the area's history. Instead it will perhaps become someone's home or a comfortable Air&b bringing visitors and money in to the area.