Undiscovered Scotland

 

The name "Torridon" is used to describe both an area and a village. The area name Torridon is loosely used to describe the area to the north of Loch Torridon, on both sides of Upper Loch Torridon, and on both sides of Glen Torridon as it heads west and then curves round to the north towards Kinlochewe. You might find that others set its boundaries a little differently: but you'll be hard pressed to find anyone who challenges the view that Torridon contains some of Scotland's most magnificent mountains in a setting that inspires awe and wonder. Torridon's mountains are no shrinking violets. The three giants of Beinn Alligin, Liathach and Beinn Eighe rise around 1,000 metres from sea level, and crowd in on the glen and loch. A first trip along the single track road through Glen Torridon is an unforgettable experience.

At the north-east corner of Upper Loch Torridon a linear village lies strung out along the shore and the side of the low lying ground at the head of the loch. Close behind it the formidable rocky face of Liathach rises almost sheer to its summit ridge. Until as recently as the 1950s the village was called Fasag. Today is is more generally known as Torridon.

Torridon is not large by any standards. A number of houses and cottages; a village hall; a shop. And wherever you look you cannot escape the vast wall of rock rising immediately to the north. The village also offers a wide range of accommodation. This includes a campsite and, nearby, the popular Youth Hostel.

At the east end of Torridon, close to the junction of the minor road that runs through it with the A896, is the National Trust for Scotland's Torridon Countryside Centre with display and audio-visual presentations on the geology and wildlife of the surrounding area, much of which is now in the ownership of the Trust. A few hundred yards away is a Deer Museum.

Torridon has not always been as peaceful as it is today. In the 1600s there was an ironworks here, which probably converted pig iron produced in furnaces on the shore of Loch Maree into wrought iron for shipment to England. In more recent times the area suffered badly during the clearances. In 1831 the estate was sold to a Colonel McBarnet. His fortune had been made on plantations in the West Indies and his treatment of his Torridon tenants presumably differed little from his treatment of his plantation workers. Most tenants, in what until then been a relatively prosperous area, were deprived of their lands and their living and resettled on marginal land at the head of the loch.

Better times came when the estate was sold to Duncan Darroch, Baron of Gourock. His main interest was in establishing a deer forest, and he returned traditional crofting land to tenants, gave access for cattle grazing on upland areas and loaned tenants money to purchase cattle and boats. Duncan Darroch died in 1910 at Torridon House, and his wife later had a stone placed close to the road and loch which reads: This stone was erected in 1912 by Ann widow of Duncan Darroch of Gourock and Torridon in memory of the devotion and affection shown by one hundred men on the estate of Torridon who at their own request carried his body from the house here on its way to interment in the family burial place at Gourock. The estate later passed to the National Trust for Scotland.