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Recording Your Heritage Online
Event ID 566997
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Recording Your Heritage Online
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/566997
Mallaig (Malaig) In 1900, Mallaig was a humble settlement with a scattering of thatched houses. A stone pier and salt store had been built by Lord Lovat in 1846/7 as part of his plans to develop a fishing port, but Mallaig's potential to become a thriving centre with ready access to the Minch and its islands was really only set in motion with the arrival of the West Highland Railway. Gulls still wheel around fishing boats in the harbour (whose principal commodity today is prawns), but the focus of the place has shifted now from fish loading and kippering to ferry traffic, and the service of travellers coming and going by road, rail and sea. This seasonal transience is nothing new to Mallaig, for in the old days the population swelled and ebbed depending on the herring fishing - few actually lived in Mallaig, so little was invested here. Today, the village spills out from a short main street of ice creamcoloured houses to an amphitheatre of later 20th century housing, which stretches round the bay to
Mallaig Bheag, the original crofting settlement and landing place of Bonnie Prince Charlie after his escape from Skye in July 1746.
Taken from "Western Seaboard: An Illustrated Architectural Guide", by Mary Miers, 2008. Published by the Rutland Press http://www.rias.org.uk
