Sandwood Bay
Encyclopedia
Sutherland
Sutherland is a registration county, lieutenancy area and historic administrative county of Scotland. It is now within the Highland local government area. In Gaelic the area is referred to according to its traditional areas: Dùthaich 'IcAoidh , Asainte , and Cataibh...
, on the far north-west coast of mainland Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. It is best known for its mile-long beach and Am Buachaille
Am Buachaille
Am Buachaille is a sea stack, or vertical rock formation, near Sandwood Bay in the Scottish county of Sutherland at . It was first climbed in 1968 by the mountaineers Tom Patey and Ian Clough. The name means "The herdsman" in Scottish Gaelic.-External links:...
, a sea stack, and lies about 5 miles south of Cape Wrath
Cape Wrath
Cape Wrath is a cape in Sutherland, Highland, in northern Scotland. It is the most northwesterly point on the island of Great Britain. The land between the Kyle of Durness and the lighthouse that is situated right at the tip, is known as the Parph, two hundred and seven square kilometers of...
. Behind the bay's large dunes, stretches Sandwood Loch - a freshwater loch full of brown and sea trout.
Though remote, and with no road access, the bay is easily reached by a 4-mile long, yet well-trodden and fairly flat, path leading from the gravel car park at the hamlet
Hamlet (place)
A hamlet is usually a rural settlement which is too small to be considered a village, though sometimes the word is used for a different sort of community. Historically, when a hamlet became large enough to justify building a church, it was then classified as a village...
of Blairmore
Blairmore, Sutherland
Blairmore is a small remote crofting hamlet, on the north west coast of Lairg in Sutherland, Scottish Highlands and is in the Scottish council area of Highland....
. Sandwood Bay is part of the Sandwood Estate which is run by the John Muir Trust
John Muir Trust
The John Muir Trust is a Scottish charity established as a membership organisation in 1983 to conserve wild land and wild places for the benefit of all...
.
Legends
Because of its isolation, the bay has become distinctly romanticised with several legends accorded to it. One legendLegend
A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude...
tells of a mermaid
Mermaid
A mermaid is a mythological aquatic creature with a female human head, arms, and torso and the tail of a fish. A male version of a mermaid is known as a "merman" and in general both males and females are known as "merfolk"...
spotted on one of the two jutting rocks there a hundred years ago. Alexander Gunn, a local farmer, was on the beach, searching for one of his sheep, when his dog made a startling discovery. One man, MacDonald Robertson, often spoke of the time he met Mr Gunn in 1939. This is what he reported: "On 5th January 1900 ... Gunn's Collie
Collie
The collie is a distinctive type of herding dog, including many related landraces and formal breeds. It originates in Scotland and Northern England. It is a medium-sized, fairly lightly built dog with a pointed snout, and many types have a distinctive white pattern over the shoulders. Collies...
suddenly let out a howl and cringed in terror at his feet. On a ledge, above the tide, a figure was reclining on the rock face. At first he thought it was a seal, then he saw the hair was reddish-yellow, the eyes greenish-blue and the body yellowish and about 7ft long. To the day Alexander Gunn died in 1944, his story never changed and he maintained that he had seen a mermaid of ravishing beauty."
Another legend tells of the ghost
Ghost
In traditional belief and fiction, a ghost is the soul or spirit of a deceased person or animal that can appear, in visible form or other manifestation, to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to...
of a sailor
Sailor
A sailor, mariner, or seaman is a person who navigates water-borne vessels or assists in their operation, maintenance, or service. The term can apply to professional mariners, military personnel, and recreational sailors as well as a plethora of other uses...
that would often knock on the windows of the old cottage (now a disused bothy
Bothy
A bothy is a basic shelter, usually left unlocked and available for anyone to use free of charge. It was also a term for basic accommodation, usually for gardeners or other workers on an estate. Bothies are to be found in remote, mountainous areas of Scotland, northern England, Ireland, and Wales....
) on stormy nights - apparently the victim of a shipwreck
Shipwreck
A shipwreck is what remains of a ship that has wrecked, either sunk or beached. Whatever the cause, a sunken ship or a wrecked ship is a physical example of the event: this explains why the two concepts are often overlapping in English....
there. Indeed, before the Cape Wrath lighthouse
Lighthouse
A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses or, in older times, from a fire, and used as an aid to navigation for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways....
was built in 1828, the bay is said to have played host to many a shipwreck - all of which still lie buried under the sand. In the 1920s, author Seton Gordon
Seton Gordon
Seton Gordon was a Scottish naturalist, photographer and folklorist.Gordon began exploring the Highlands of Scotland as a boy, particularly the Cairngorms. He later became a world famous naturalist, photographer and folklorist, describing the wildlife and scenery of Scotland. His books are still...
witnessed many submerged wrecks in the sand while walking here. In a book he wrote in 1935, "Highways & Byways In The West Highlands", he says: "I was astonished at the number of wrecks which lie on the fine sand of this bay. All of them are old tragedies: since the placing of a lighthouse on Cape Wrath just over a hundred years ago, no vessel has been lost here. Some of the vessels lie almost buried in the sand far above the reach of the highest tide". He also commented on the possibility of there being Viking
Viking
The term Viking is customarily used to refer to the Norse explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates who raided, traded, explored and settled in wide areas of Europe, Asia and the North Atlantic islands from the late 8th to the mid-11th century.These Norsemen used their famed longships to...
longboats hidden there, since Sandwood Bay had been used by the Vikings as a stopover point a thousand years previous. The name Sandwood Bay derives from the Viking name 'Sandvatn' ("sandwater") given the bay all those centuries ago.
In June 2009 a microlight plane crash landed on the beach, the pilot Keith Brown escaped injury. The plane then had to be dismantled and carried four miles to the nearest road by a team of 14 men.