Qualla: Strathnaver Museum

Strathnaver Museum: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Reverend David Mackenzie spoke Gaelic, which is why the Sutherland Estate gave him the eviction notices to read. He was the minister of Farr, and the people standing in front of him on the eve of clearance were his parishioners - the same people whose christenings and weddings and funerals he had presided over, who had filled the pews of this church for a generation. He believed, at first, that what was being done was for their good. The improvements would benefit everyone, the Countess of Sutherland had promised. He changed his mind when he saw what was actually being provided for the evicted - which was nothing. He joined the Free Church in 1843. The building where he had stood and read those notices is now the Strathnaver Museum.

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Strathnaver Museum: The Building That Survived

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The former parish church of Farr was built in 1774 on a site of Christian use stretching back at least a thousand years. The Pictish Farr Stone, carved around 850 AD, still stands at the west gable, alongside three early grave markers - older than the church, older than the paris...

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Strathnaver Museum: The Clearances

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Strathnaver Museum exists to tell the story of what happened to the people of north-west Sutherland between roughly 1800 and 1850. The Countess of Sutherland and her husband the Marquess decided that their estate would be more profitable as sheep grazing than as the home of the t...

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Strathnaver Museum: Inside the Collection

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The original pulpit still dominates the main room, fronted by a reader's desk and a panelled, dated backboard initialled MGM - Master George Munro, minister from 1754 to 1779. Munro's tomb lies in the graveyard outside. The collection itself ranges across thousands of years: an i...

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Strathnaver Museum: Why It Matters That a Volunteer Runs It

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Strathnaver Museum is not a national institution. It is held together by people who give their time. The community that built it, like the community whose history it preserves, did so by choice - in the absence of any larger structure that would do the work for them. The Highland...

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