Staffin is a village in the north of the Isle of Skye. Near Staffin there is one of the oldest archeological sites in Scotland, a Mesolithic campsite from the 7th millennium (!) BCE.
Staffin Harvest
The parish of Staffin lies on the Trotternish peninsula in the far northeast corner of Skye,
some eighteen miles from Portree.
There, on the thick turf above the lovely curve of Staffin Bay
are the scattered white houses of prosperous crofts.
Tiny Staffin played a prominent role in the agrarian reform movement in Scotland.
Agitation for fair rents and security of tenure for crofters began in Staffin in 1879,
actions which resulted in H.M.S. Assistance being sent to Portree in November of 1884,
and invasion of Skye by Royal Marines armed with rifles and newspaper writers armed with pens.
The end result was the “Crofters’ Holdings Act” of 1886,
the work of that “Grand Old Man”, Prime Minister William E. Gladstone.
In an island that had seen over thirty thousand people evicted in forty years,
and those that remained condemned to a hard and miserable existence,
the act and its later amendments came as manna from Heaven.
Not only in Skye, but all over Scotland, tenants at last were assured of fixed and fair rents,
common grazings for cattle and sheep, enlarged crofts as necessity demanded,
the development of home industries, the building of piers and improvements in livestock breeding.
Above Staffin towers the Quiraing, an extraordinary geological formation that features
the “Table”, a grass-covered rock plateau where once an annual game of shinty was played,
the “Prison”, where stolen cattle in their thousands could be concealed,
and “Needle Rock”, a jagged spike 120 feet in height.
In Victorian times,
it was usual for summer visitors to travel from Portree by carriage
or be rowed ashore from yachts anchored in Staffin Bay
to explore this fantastic conglomeration of rocks.
At Flodigarry, a mile north of Staffin, is the cottage that was the home of Flora MacDonald
after her marriage to Allan MacDonald of Kingsburgh.
From “Scotland Dances”, by Eugenia (Jeannie) Callander Sharp
(Used by permission.)