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Click for services within this area. The township of Altnaharra at the west end of Loch Naver is dominated by the vast bulk of Ben Klibreck (3154ft) in the Loch Choire Forest. There has been a hotel at Altnaharra since the early 1800's and it is a famous game fishing 'Mecca' today. The north shore of Loch Naver provides evidence of earlier residents. Neolithic men farmed the land and tended cattle in the hills. The climate then was warmer than it is today. At Grummore, close to the caravan site on the shores of the loch are the tumbled ruins of a 2,000 year-old broch. From the 9th to the 12th centuries, Norsemen visited this fertile strath in search of slaves, food and booty. Then, the old brochs that zigzagged the banks of the River Naver from Bettyhill to Mudale were much used: fires were lit on their tops, sending an instant warning message down Strathnaver of the Viking's approach. A more poignant memorial lies of the slopes of the hill above Grummore Broch: the scattered stones that are the remains of the township of Grummore; the first village in Strathnaver to be cleared of its people by Patrick Seller on Monday 13th June 1814. Another memorial of bitter memory is the graveyard at Achness the cornfield by the cascade, near to where the loch narrows before it rushes north into the River Naver. There was a church here, but it was dismantled after the clearances. The timbers were floated up the loch and built into the Altnaharra Hotel. |
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