NSA Special Qualities
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Extract from: Scottish Natural Heritage (2010). The special qualities of the National Scenic Areas . SNH Commissioned Report No.374. The Special Qualities of the Wester Ross National Scenic Area • Scenic splendour • Human settlement within a vast natural backdrop • The spectacular and magnificent mountains • Recognisable mountain profiles • Stark geology and rock • The large sweeps of open, expansive moorland • The distinctive and populated coastal settlements • Woodlands and trees that soften the landscape • Great tracts of wild and remote land • The superb coast and coastal views • The abundance of water, a foreground to dramatic views • A landscape of many layers, with visual continuity of coastal, moorland and mountain • The ever-changing weather and light • Loch Maree and Slioch, one of the most iconic and recognisable landscapes in Scotland • The spectacular high mountain pass of the Bealach na Bà Special Quality Further Information • Scenic splendour Wester Ross is renowned for its scenic Wester Ross: ‘ A landscape that is widely valued both for its splendour. It is a landscape of distinctive beauty and its bleakness, with its dramatic combinations of mainly barren mountain and coastal scenery. ’ NTS (2007) mountains and lochs, of great swathes of moorland, of ancient woods and open ‘It is one of the least hospitable and yet most beautiful parts peatland, of beautiful coasts and of Scotland and the most rugged of the Highlands.’ sweeping views. Johnston and Balharry (2001). The mountains can be jagged or Landforms include rocky peaks, ridges and plateaux; spectacular mountain corries and deep glens; cnocan rounded, terraced or scree-covered; the topography and extensive peat-covered moorland; cliffs can be vast or intimate, the individual rocks and boulders; a multitude of freshwater and moorland rough or smooth; the coasts sea lochs, lochans, rivers and burns; and a coast of can be straight or indented, rocky or headlands, bays, cliffs, beaches and rocky shores. sandy; the sea lochs open or enclosed, and lochs linear or irregular. The juxtaposition of so many different landforms ensures the scenery is endlessly varied and always dramatic – and no two views are ever the same. • Human settlement within a vast natural backdrop After travelling through a wild, moorland One of the most distinctive features of the NSA is the landscape, there is always a sense of contrast between the vast mountains and the small, intimate scale human settlements. This is well illustrated by the arrival when centres of population are settlement of Fasag on Upper Loch Torridon, which has reached, of reaching a safe haven. The Liathach towering up behind. contrast between the populated, cultivated coast and the uninhabited, Except for Kinlochewe, the interior of the NSA is largely wilder and mountainous interior is uninhabited, with settlement confined to coastal areas. Some of the settlements are in sheltered bays, whereas marked. others such as Melvaig are on exposed, coastal slopes. Inland, grand mountain landscapes There is evidence of human occupation in this area dating dominate, whether enclosed glen or back to prehistory. In the past, a few inland areas were more widely settled, for example along Loch Maree, where distant panorama. On the coast, there th are both expansive views over the Minch woodlands were managed to support ironworking in the 18 century. and shorter views across to the far shore of a sea loch. This dominance of nature contrasts with the hospitable and intimate detail of crofting settlement, where the eye is drawn to a house, a garden or an enclosed field. • The spectacular and magnificent mountains Many magnificent mountains rise ‘Near vertical mountains and sea contained within one precipitously and dominate the view. view. ’ Highland Council (2002) These can tower above the glens or rise ‘Torridon has perhaps one of the most dramatic and straight from sea or loch. Their extent, distinctive landscapes in the British Isles, comparing sheer solid mass and physical three- favourably with other mountain areas of the world, with dimensional presence dominates all of steep-sided glens and razor sharp mountain ridges, rising Wester Ross. almost vertically from sea level.’ NTS (2007) The area contains several major massifs, all renowned for The mountain scenery is always their steep-sided and rocky mountains: the Applecross spectacular, with the corries and vertical Mountains, the Torridon Mountains, the Coulin Hills, and the rock walls of Beinn Bhàn, Coire Mhic extensive area between Loch Maree and Little Loch Broom Fhearchair (Beinn Eighe) and Coire Toll (the Fisherfield, Letterewe and Strathnasheallag Forests). an Lochain (An Teallach) being particularly impressive. The area has The eastern cliffs of Beinn Lair are the longest inland cliffs in Britain. some of the most challenging and exhilarating mountain walks and climbs Many mountains appear at first sight impregnable, and can in the British Isles. only be ascended in a few places. The ridges can be narrow and frightening, sometimes necessitating scrambling. The Carn Mòr Crags above Fionn Loch provide some of the finest rock climbing in Britain; and in suitable conditions, the mountain corries some of the finest winter climbing. • Recognisable mountain profiles Although they exist in definite groups, A key characteristic of the Wester Ross mountains is that each individual mountain has a unique they tend to have no foothills, but rise straight from sea level or thereabouts, sometimes up to 1000m in height. shape and profile, making it distinct and readily identifiable. Many peaks once visited or climbed leave a strong visual 2 Some of the most vertical and famous impression on the mind, and are recognisable landmarks. mountains in Scotland can be found Some of the most familiar are: here, such as Liathach, Beinn Alligin, • The precipitous corries, cliffs and ridge of the Beinn Eighe, Slioch and An Teallach. Applecross mountains. • The distinctive pyramidal, terraced individual Torridon peaks of Liathach and Ben Alligin. • Ben Eighe, with its serrated ridge of quartzite above Kinlochewe. • The dome-like Maol Chean-dearg above Glen Torridon. • Slioch, a towering castellated peak above Loch Maree. • The terraced north end of Baosbheinn above Loch Bad na Sgalaig. • The twin peaks of Beinn Airigh Charr overlooking Loch Ewe and Inverewe Garden. • The rounded mass of Sail Mhor above Little Loch Broom. • The jagged ridge and pinnacles of An Teallach. • Stark geology and rock The prominence of bare rock is a The NSA is mostly west of the Moine Thrust and has a particularly distinctive feature and distinctive and easily understandable geology: there is a base layer of Lewisian gneiss, and sitting unconformably on appears in a variety of forms. The cnoc this is the horizontally stratified, pink Torridonian and lochan landscape of Lewisian gneiss sandstone. These are both ancient, Pre-Cambrian is notable in many low-ground areas. The formations, and the gneiss in the Gruinard Bay area is pink, terraced cliffs of the Torridonian amongst the oldest rocks in the world at 2.5 billion years mountains are also unmistakable, as are old. Above the Torridonian sandstone is the horizontally bedded, white and brittle Cambrian quartzite. the white, scree-covered slopes of Cambrian quartzite. In many places, Where the Lewisian gneiss outcrops on the lower ground it individual large boulders lie scattered on results in cnocan and lochan topography, with the whitish the ground, dropped randomly by the rock and small cliffs particularly distinctive. The Torridonian retreating ice. sandstone low ground, in contrast, tends to be smoother and peat-covered. The presence of so much rock lends the Where the gneiss underlies the higher ground it can result landscape a hard, barren aspect. The in more rounded hills, such as east of Fionn Loch. In geology, being generally impermeable, contrast the hills of Torridonian sandstone are particularly acidic and resistant to weathering, has distinctive with their horizontal strata, and layer upon layer of pink cliffs. Cambrian quartzite, which outcrops on some given a vegetation cover dominated by mountains, tends to break-up into block scree as can be infertile heaths and bog. seen on Beinn Eighe. However, the very hardness and Glaciation has resulted in narrow arêtes, steep, flat- resistance of the rock, combined with bottomed glens, impressive corries and extensive morainic extensive glaciation in the past, has deposits. The hummocky moraine south of Coire Dubh in Glen Torridon is particularly well-known. resulted in the spectacular landscape that today is highly valued. • The large sweeps of open, expansive moorland Not all the landscape consists of high The character of the moorland is dependent on whether the mountains. There are large tracts of underlying rock is Lewisian gneiss (cnoc and lochan), or Torridonian sandstone (smoother with more blanket peat). moorland, some areas rocky and Some of these moorland areas are coastal, e.g. the uneven, and others smooth and peat- peninsulas of Rubha Rèidh and Greenstone Point. covered. The moors are studded with numerous lochs and lochans, and crossed by many burns and rivers. Many 3 of these areas are uninhabited, adding to this expansive landscape a feeling of ruggedness and wildness. • The distinctive and populated coastal settlements There is a diversity of settlement, each Many of the coastal crofting settlements were established distinctive in its own way. All but during the Highland Clearances, although evidence suggests that many were laid out on top of older pre- Kinlochewe overlook the sea, and most improvement townships. The general pattern is of widely are crofting townships with the houses separated croft houses within the inbye land, which widely-spaced along no-through roads nowadays often consist of rush pasture with the fields which pass through the enclosed inbye separated by post and wire fences. land and its rectilinear fields. Linear Crofting is characterised by a strong regular pattern of clearly ordered crofting strips extending from the upper However a few do have a concentration moorland down to the coastal edge.