Achfary () is a hamlet in the

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

council area of

Highland Highlands or uplands are areas of high elevation such as a mountainous region, elevated mountainous plateau or high hills. Generally, ''upland'' refers to a range of hills, typically from up to , while ''highland'' is usually reserved for range ...

. To the east of the village lies Loch nan Ealachan. It is owned by the

Grosvenor Estate Grosvenor Group Limited is an internationally diversified property group, which traces its origins to 1677 and has its headquarters in London, England. Previously (from 1841) based at 66-68 Brook Street & 53 Davies Street, it is now based at 7 ...

(the Duke of Westminster) and is renowned for its unusual black and white

telephone box A telephone booth, telephone kiosk, telephone call box, telephone box or public call box is a tiny structure furnished with a payphone and designed for a telephone user's convenience; typically the user steps into the booth and closes the booth ...

, erected in the 1960s. In response to a campaign by the Duke to keep the box in place, a spokesman for BT said in October 2008 that it had been "used for three chargeable calls last year and 29 in all. The other 26 were free." Despite this, it remains one of the least-known villages in Scotland. Achfary

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

opened on 1 September 1956, and is still open to this day. The Reay Forest Estate's offices were, until recently, located in part of the house closest to the village hall; now it is housed in the top floor of the newly erected Steading Building, a two-storey office and workshed arrangement with its design based on the farmhouse previously occupying that spot. The front of the building contains a plaque that was first housed in a church, which was later closed and the plaque moved to the farmhouse. Following the demolition of the farmhouse, which, at that time, was used as a workshop of sorts, it was decided that the Steading Building should contain this plaque as well. Achfary's village hall, commonly used for functions, also houses its school, Achfary Primary. The school, while not the smallest in the area, is among the smallest in Britain, with only eight pupils as of May 2009. Two of these were scheduled to leave in the summer, and a further three were transfers from neighbouring

Scourie Scourie (), historically spelled "Scoury", is a village on the north west coast of Scotland, about halfway between Ullapool and Durness. The name comes from the Gaelic word Sheiling or shed, a stone-built place of shelter used during the summer ...

Primary, a school caught in an argument between various members of its community, leading to the temporary transfer of many of its pupils to other nearby

primary school A primary school (in Ireland, India, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, South Africa, and Singapore), elementary school, or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ...

s. In 1982, the English poet

J. H. Prynne Jeremy Halvard Prynne (born 24 June 1936) is a British poet closely associated with the British Poetry Revival. Prynne grew up in Kent and was educated at St Dunstan's College, Catford, and Jesus College, Cambridge. He is a Life Fellow of Gonv ...

sent a series of four postcards from Achfary to friend and contemporary poet

Ed Dorn Edward Merton Dorn (April 2, 1929 – December 10, 1999) was an American poet and teacher often associated with the Black Mountain poets. His most famous work is ''Gunslinger''. Overview Dorn was born in Villa Grove, Illinois. He grew up in ru ...

, who published them in his newspaper Rolling Stock under the title 'Highland Notes'. In these pieces, Prynne reads the landscape of Achfary through the lens of its historical background during the

Highland Clearances The Highland Clearances ( , the "eviction of the Gaels") were the evictions of a significant number of tenants in the Scottish Highlands and Islands, mostly in two phases from 1750 to 1860. The first phase resulted from Scottish Agricultural R ...

, writing: 'This place is sharply desolate, empty because invisibly emptied.'

Climate

On 28 December 2019, a maximum temperature of 18.7 °C was recorded by the Met Office. This is the highest temperature ever recorded in the UK during December. On 28 January 2024, a maximum temperature of 19.9 °C was recorded by the Met Office. This is the highest temperature ever recorded in the UK in January.

References

External links

{{Commons category Populated places in Sutherland