Qualla: Applecross

Applecross: Introduction

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nick Bramhall from Aberdeen, UK, CC BY-SA 2.0. Maelrubha sailed from Bangor Abbey in Ireland in 671 and arrived a year later on a wooded peninsula on the west coast of Scotland that was then Pictish territory. He named the place Aporcrosan - mouth of the river Crossan, which the Picts called it - and he founded a monastery there in 673. The surrounding district he called A' Chomraich, the sanctuary. The Gaelic name still works. Applecross today is one of the most isolated places on the British mainland that has a road at all: a single-track lane crosses the mountains into it from the east, and until 1975 that road, the Bealach na Ba, was the only land link to anywhere. Before the road, there was the boat. Before the boat, there were the monks.

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Image: Nick Bramhall from Aberdeen, UK | CC BY-SA 2.0

Applecross: The Geography of Isolation

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kenneth Ross, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Applecross peninsula juts out into the Inner Sound between Skye and the mainland. Loch Kishorn marks its southern boundary; Loch Torridon, its northern; Glen Shieldaig closes it on the east. Its western shore faces Applecross Bay, with the mountains of Skye on the far horizon...

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Image: Kenneth Ross | CC BY-SA 2.0

Applecross: Maelrubha's Sanctuary

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit James Emmans, CC BY-SA 2.0. The monastery Saint Máel Ruba founded in 673 was for centuries one of the most important Celtic Christian houses in northern Britain - older than Iona's revival, contemporary with Lindisfarne's brightness. Máel Ruba himself was a missionary from Bangor Abbey, the great monastery ...

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Image: James Emmans | CC BY-SA 2.0

Applecross: The Hardest Road in Britain

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dave Fergusson, CC BY-SA 2.0. For most of recorded history the only way into Applecross by land was the Bealach na Ba, the Pass of the Cattle, which climbs from sea level at Kishorn to 626 metres in about six kilometres - the greatest ascent of any road in the United Kingdom. Built in 1822 to bring cattle out...

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Image: Dave Fergusson | CC BY-SA 2.0

Applecross: Estates and Eagles

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit N Chadwick, CC BY-SA 2.0. After the Reformation the lands of Applecross were secularised around 1591 and granted to Clan Mackenzie. Alexander Mackenzie, who died in 1650, was the founding laird of the local branch; his descendants held the estate until the mid-nineteenth century, with one interruption bet...

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Image: N Chadwick | CC BY-SA 2.0

Applecross: The Sanctuary Today

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Fred Antoine, CC BY-SA 3.0. Applecross is now squarely on the tourist map - the North Coast 500 route, set up in 2015 and now one of Scotland's most travelled holiday loops, crosses the Bealach na Ba and runs straight through The Street. The inn at Applecross is famous for seafood. The unmanned petrol pump ...

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Image: Fred Antoine | CC BY-SA 3.0