Melvaig is a crofting township on the coast of western

Ross-shire Ross-shire (; ), or the County of Ross, was a county in the Scottish Highlands. It bordered Sutherland to the north and Inverness-shire to the south, as well as having a complex border with Cromartyshire, a county consisting of numerous enc ...

Scottish Highlands The Highlands (; , ) is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Scottish Lowlands, Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Scots language, Lowland Scots language replaced Scottish Gae ...

and is 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 ...

. The houses are largely on a raised shoreline in

Wester Ross Wester Ross () is an area of the Northwest Highlands of Scotland in the council area of Highland. The area is loosely defined, and has never been used as a formal administrative region in its own right, but is generally regarded as lying to th ...

and are scattered on the crofts into which the land was divided in 1846. While, in the past, the houses were closely linked to the associated crofts and the activities of crofting, nowadays many are detached from the crofts. Most of the crofts are used for sheep grazing by a small number of crofters with little or no growing of crops. The area is seen as attractive so houses that come on the market are bought usually by people from outwith the area. Some properties are holiday or second homes. In the past, Melvaig along with Aultgrishan was served by a number of shops, a school, post office and mission houses but none of these operate today. The only service available in the area is a pillar box for post. There is evidence of settlement dating back at least five centuries. Although it has a name derived from Norse, no evidence of settlement from Viking times is known. The village is accessed from

Gairloch Gairloch ( ; , meaning "Short Loch") is a village, civil parish and community on the shores of Loch Gairloch in Wester Ross, in the North-West Highlands of Scotland. A tourist destination in the summer months, Gairloch has a golf course, a ...

, which is 10 miles to the southeast. It adjoins Aultgrishan, and the crofting village of

North Erradale North Erradale is a remote coastal crofting village on the western coast of Ross-shire, Scottish Highlands and is in the Scottish council area of Highland. The villages of Melvaig lies 4 miles to the north, along the coast road, with the villag ...

lies 4 miles to the south, along the coast road, with the village of Big Sand lying directly south. Melvaig is the final village at the north of the peninsula leading to

Rua Reidh Lighthouse Rua Reidh Lighthouse stands close to the entrance to Loch Ewe in Wester Ross, Scotland. History The name "Rua Reidh" is a semi-anglicisation of "Rubha Rèidh" meaning a flat headland. A lighthouse on Rubh'Re Point was first proposed by David ...

. The Gaelic word for Melvaig is ''Mealabhaig'' meaning 'bent grass bay' or ‘sandy hillock covered overgrown with bent grass bay’ derived from Norse. The natural vegetation of the area is bent grass but there is no significant bay on this part of the coast. In 1805, John M'Callum crashed his schooner full of herrings into the rocks a distance of one mile from the shores of Melvaig. All hands on deck perished save one. A Melvaig resident named John Smith stole the sea boots off of one of the bodies washed along the shore. A box containing 400 pounds was lost during the shipwreck and recovered by a resident, never to be returned. By 1895, a boat slip was constructed by the government in the wrong location, this rendered the

Dock The word dock () in American English refers to one or a group of human-made structures that are involved in the handling of boats or ships (usually on or near a shore). In British English, the term is not used the same way as in American Engl ...

useless for the local fishermen and had to be altered in later years after a parliamentary inquiry. Melvaig has a long history of smuggling goods, with the many caves along the shoreline hidden by the diversion of streams which create waterfalls blocking view of the cavity. (Did this actually occur in this area?) Both the production and smuggling of alcohol was an important part of life for many residents, with many tactics of subterfuge.

References

{{Reflist Populated places in Ross and Cromarty