29. Sep, 2021
Starting the Journey.....
I was born in Dartford, Kent in the 1950s. I have often thought as I sat in a traffic jam approaching the Dartford Tunnel that this was not ideal for someone keen to associate himself with Scotland. However, my parents, both of whom were Scottish, did christen me Alastair James Mackay Mitchell, which leaves little doubt as to my ancestry. As a family, we would make regular trips to my grandmother in Comrie, and from the 1960s onwards we began to take holidays in a farmhouse on the Kyle of Tongue, with magnificent views of Ben Loyal and Ben Hope. Eventually my parents retired to Talmine.
For some 40 years I was a professional orchestral musician, combining this career with a modest business selling antiques - mainly old books, prints, and maps. My own collection of antique maps of Scotland included a coastal chart by the Reverend Alexander Bryce, published in 1744, and titled A Map of the North Coast of Britain from Row Stoir of Assynt to Wick in Caithness, which depicts the area with remarkable accuracy, given the difficulty of access that anyone must have faced in the 18th century. How, I wondered, had he made his survey? My fascination with the region was further excited when I stumbled on a book by David Oldroyd, called The Highlands Controversy. Flicking through the pages, I found photographs of places I knew well - Loch Eriboll, Assynt, Durness, amongst others - and a story of geological discovery about which I knew nothing.
So began my research into the region that includes Sutherland and Ross-shire. Who had been there, how they had got there before there were any roads, and what had they found there? The end result has been my book, The Immeasurable Wilds: Travellers to the Far North of Scotland which will be published in february 2022 by Whittles Publishing.
My research has revealed many more discoveries and images in addition to those that I could include in the book, and I would like to share these with you in this blog. I hope you will feel that you can share with me your experiences and discoveries in or about this remarkable area, all of which will contribute to a subject that has, I believe, received little attention in general. Please feel free to correct me if you consider anything I write to be wrong: many of you may know much more than I do about specific subjects, and I would welcome your thoughts.
For more details of the book, and the chance to pre-order it, please follow the link:
https://www.whittlespublishing.com/The_Immeasurable_Wilds
The image at the top of this post is an aquatint taken from William Daniell's Tour of Great Britain 1814 - 1825. It is a very early view of Ben Loyal, on the Kyle of Tongue, where people can be seen collecting shellfish. At times of famine, people would come from miles around.
The image on the home page is also from Daniell's tour, showing Bonar Bridge, which was built by Telford. It was a notable structure which was cast in Wales, but was destroyed in a stormy spell in 1892.