Qualla: Bettyhill

Bettyhill: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

There is an unsettling irony in the name of this village. Bettyhill was named for Elizabeth, Countess of Sutherland - "Betty" to her family - and she is the same Countess of Sutherland whose factors and constables oversaw the Strathnaver Clearances of the early 19th century, the systematic burning and eviction of the Highland tenants who had lived along the River Naver for generations. The village exists because those people were driven down to the coast to scrape a living from fishing on land their landlord considered marginal. They were the ones who built Bettyhill, on a hill that already carried, by accident or by deliberate insult, her name.

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Bettyhill: The Village by the Sea

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Bettyhill sits on the A836, 32 miles west of Thurso and 12 miles from Tongue, in the parish of Farr. The population today is 576. To the south, the River Naver runs down from Loch Naver to empty into Torrisdale Bay, one of the broadest and most photographed beaches on the north c...

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Bettyhill: The Strathnaver Museum

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Strathnaver Museum sits in the former parish church at the centre of the village, and almost everyone in the Highland diaspora knows about it. It is the museum that tells, in detail, what happened in the glens behind Bettyhill between roughly 1814 and 1820 - when Patrick Sell...

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Bettyhill: The Guy Cup

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Bettyhill holds an annual football tournament called the Guy Cup. Teams from villages along the north coast - the kind of villages where you might raise a side of eleven only if everyone shows up - gather for a single competition each summer. The cup is held in memory of Philip M...

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