The Culrain Clearance riots

In 1820 the people on the estate of Culrain took direct action against the prospect of being cleared. The events constituted classic anti-clearance riots, the whole episode being described by the historian Eric Richards as an “explosion of physical resistance”.


By Malcolm Bangor-Jones


The Culrain estate stretched along the Kyle of Sutherland from Balinoe at its eastern end to Ochtow on the west where it bounded with the property of Ross of Balnagown. It had formerly been known as Carbisdale but had been renamed by the Munros who owned Culrain in the parish of Rosskeen. In 1820 the Culrain estate was owned by Hugh Andrew Johnstone Munro of Novar – a young man who was a close friend of Turner and was to become known as an art collector.


The estate was managed by Novar’s factor Peter Brown of Linkwood who had a reputation as “one of the most skilled men in the North”. The whole estate had been let to a Major Forbes – this was Donald Forbes, one of the leading tacksmen on the Reay estate where he was tenant of the large sheepfarm of Melness.


A good deal of the Culrain estate - it is not yet entirely clear how much – was to be devoted to a sheepfarm. This would require the removal of 60 tenants who, according to Novar, had rejected his proposals to provide for them. Some of these tenants, it would appear, had resettled on the estate after being cleared from Sutherland.