Crofting

Kilchoan and its surrounding villages are crofting villages. A croft is a small, traditional, west coast farm. A typical croft in Kilchoan is about one hundred metres wide, and runs some four hundred metres from the shore up the hill to the boundary fence. With that arrangement, each crofter had a variety of soils and slopes to work, and access to the shore.

Traditionally, land in the Highlands was held in common, and it was the task of the local chief to allocate crofts to his clansmen. After Bonnie Price Charlie's 1745 rebellion, many chiefs treated the land as their own and sold it to incoming landlords for use in sheep farming. In the Clearances that followed, many families were forced off their crofts by their landlords and fled abroad. When the exploitation and poverty of the remaining crofters was exposed to Victorian Britain, crofting laws were passed to protect them: many of these rights, and the support that came with them, still apply today.

Kilchoan, in its broad sense, is divided into three crofting townships, Kilchoan itself, at the east end, Ormsaigmor just to the east of the shop, and Ormsaigbeg at the western end. Each township is responsible for the good running of its crofts: for example, the township committee allocates rights on the extensive common grazing beyond the boundary fence, deciding how many beasts each crofter may keep on that land.

With so little land, however well run, a modern crofter cannot live without other incomes. Some keep caravans to let - a croft is allowed three - or a holiday home. Most have other jobs, from working on the local fish farms or Ardnamurchan Estate, to working in local small businesses, to jobs such as postie, carer or cleaner.

Whatever they do to make ends meet, crofting is a hard life, so great credit is due to those who have stayed in villages like Kilchoan and kept ancient Highland traditions alive.