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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Dec 16, 2021 17:25:58 GMT
Dr Strange or Shrink Proof, in the places you live or lived, was there any talk of, or evidence on the landscape of the Highland Clearances?
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Post by Shrink Proof on Dec 16, 2021 17:39:26 GMT
Dr Strange or Shrink Proof, in the places you live or lived, was there any talk of, or evidence on the landscape of the Highland Clearances? If you walk out into the great emptiness of the Scottish Highlands you often come across ruined crofts and farms, all evidence of the forced depopulation. It's one of many features of the landscape that make you feel very small when you're alone out there...
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Dec 16, 2021 17:51:44 GMT
Ian Stirling I beat you. I direct linked to your photo. And I did it twice. look. It's full size. And not an upload from my computer.
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Post by Shrink Proof on Dec 16, 2021 17:59:01 GMT
No it isn't. You should see how big it is in reality...
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Dec 16, 2021 18:00:40 GMT
No it isn't. You should see how big it is in reality... It is from where I'm lying.
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Dec 16, 2021 18:07:01 GMT
No it isn't. You should see how big it is in reality... It's very impressive. The Black Cuillin looks very impressive too. Have you been there?
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Dec 16, 2021 18:24:35 GMT
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Post by Dr Strange on Dec 16, 2021 18:31:02 GMT
Dr Strange or Shrink Proof, in the places you live or lived, was there any talk of, or evidence on the landscape of the Highland Clearances? Not so much in Caithness, but more so across in neighbouring Sutherland. In fact, some of the crofters cleared from the Sutherland estates were "resettled" in Caithness. There's a now abandoned and ruined settlement a few miles from where I grew up called Badbae where some of them ended up - the land was not really suitable for crofting, consisting of steep slopes running down to high sea cliffs, and local stories had the inhabitants tethering young children by their ankles to stakes driven into the ground to stop them from running over the cliffs. There were about 80 people living there in the early 1800s, and the last inhabitant left in 1911. The Sutherland clearances are notorious for their brutality, with one of the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland's factors (land managers), Patrick Sellar, ending up being charged with arson and culpable homicide (though he was eventually acquitted at his trial in 1816) over the death of an old woman who was apparently lying bedridden in one of the crofter's cottages that he ordered to be set on fire. There is a 100ft tall monument (called "The Mannie" locally) to the Duke of Sutherland on the hill above the village of Golspie on the east coast of Sutherland that was raised by the Duchess after his death in the 1830s - and apparently the Duchess tried to get some of the remaining locals to contribute funds towards it, which didn't really go down too well. There have been some sporadic (but so far unsuccessful) attempts to get rid of it over the years - including several attempts to topple it by removing stones from one corner of the plinth on which it stands (as recently as 2011), and at least one (probably not serious) threat to blow it up with dynamite.
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Post by Shrink Proof on Dec 16, 2021 19:24:45 GMT
No it isn't. You should see how big it is in reality... It's very impressive. The Black Cuillin looks very impressive too. Have you been there? Yes, it's a fine place and yes, I've been there several times. Some of the rocks in the Black Cuillin range are highly magnetic, powerful enough to deviate a compass and make navigation difficult. This has lead more than one walker to their doom...
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Post by Dr Strange on Dec 16, 2021 19:52:07 GMT
Skye also has The Old Man of Storr, seen in the opening credits of The Wicker Man and in Ridley Scott's Prometheus -
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Post by Dr Strange on Dec 16, 2021 20:14:09 GMT
Is that a person sitting at the top?
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Post by Shrink Proof on Dec 16, 2021 20:29:05 GMT
Is that a person sitting at the top? Indeed it is. The mountain, An Teallach, (Gaelic for The Forge, supposedly from its resemblance to one when mists curl up out of the bowl of the corrie below) has several peaks. The one in the picture is called Lord Berkeley's Seat. Legend has it that Lord Berkeley, a Victorian or Edwardian gent, used to scramble up to the top and sit there, smoking his pipe and dangling his legs over the edge, admiring the view. As you can see in the picture, it's a serious overhang and about 600 metres straight down. Lord Berkeley's Seat is at one end of a truly pant-wetting, vertiginous ridge scramble - the other end is called The Bad Step...
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Post by Dr Strange on Dec 16, 2021 20:42:03 GMT
You couldn't get me up there with a cattle prod.
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Post by Dr Strange on Dec 16, 2021 21:52:39 GMT
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Dec 17, 2021 20:23:47 GMT
John Gordon - Eels and Under The Ice, both featured in The Burning Baby and Other Ghost Stories, would qualify for this thread, I'd imagine.
M.R. James - Martin's Close has a pond containing a dreadful secret.
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