Scottish Blackfaced Sheep

As you travel around Scotland you will see many Scottish Blackfaced Sheep. This breed of sheep had an important role to play in the history of Scotland. In 1762 it was discovered that the blackface sheep of the Scottish Borders could be kept all year round on the higher hills on the land that the cattle grazed in the summertime. Later, southern farmers rented vast areas of the Highlands. The settlements and shielings were cleared of people and the land given over to the sheep. Between the years 1763-75 some 20,000 Highlanders emigrated to America from the north-west and the Scottish Islands.

The Glens of Silence: The Landscapes of the Scottish Clearances. During the last years of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth, tens of thousands of Highlanders were forcibly removed from land on which their families had lived for generations. Often evicted in the most autocratic and brutal manner, they were moved to marginal and unworkable areas, often on the coast, while the land from which they were wrenched was given over to large-scale sheep farming. Many were subsequently forced to make new lives for themselves in the Lowlands or colonies after their failure to make any kind of living on such unproductive soil - a dismal situation which was compounded by the potato famine of 1846. Stunning colour photographs depict the actual townships as they are today and the landscapes from which so many were banished, each conveying not only the natural beauty and colour of some of Scotland's most spectacular scenery, but also capturing the spirit of these places that witnessed such traumatic and shattering events. The Glens of Silence: The Landscapes of the Scottish Clearances.