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Welcome to Black Isle Info
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The Black Isle is not an island but is, in fact, a peninsula, in the Scottish Highlands.
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 It is about 23 miles long by about 9 miles wide at its broadest point and is more or less oval in shape. Situated just to the north of Inverness with Dingwall to the west, it can be reached via the A9 from the south or north, or the A832 from the west.
It is attached to the mainland at the heads of the Cromarty and Beauly Firths, and the description 'Black' is no more correct than 'Isle'. The exact origin of its name is unknown, though there are at least six possible explanations of why it became the "Black" Isle, ranging from the most intriguing, through its association with witchcraft and the black arts in mediaeval times, to the more prosaic, that the soil here is very black, or that it has so many trees that it looks black when viewed from surrounding areas in Winter.
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 Its industries today are largely fishing, forestry, farming and tourism, though life and work on the Black Isle has gone through many changes in its long history. It has supported well-established, active communities since before Pictish times. For example, there are the remains of a Crannog at Redcastle and there are several cairns scattered throughout the Black Isle, dated as far back as 1900 B.C. Castles and communities have come and gone since then, in a great many cases leaving remnants which can still be seen today. In places, some buildings and monuments have remained virtually unchanged for hundreds of years. This is in large part due to the Black Isle's relative isolation, almost surrounded as it is with water, and for long periods of its history highly dependent on ferries for outside contact and trade.
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 Topographically, the Black Isle has a long, central south-west/north-east ridge, most of which is the Mulbuie Ridge, and the highest point of which is Mount Eagle. This Ridge gradually gives way to lower, gentler, rolling hills, culminating in a series of raised beaches on the coast.Though the coastline consists largely of long sweeps of shallow bays, there are occasional deeply incised inlets and prominent, sometimes cliffed, headlands. Some of the larger bays and inlets have extensive sand and mudflats. Large areas of the Black Isle have extremely fertile soil, which has led to the development of a well-established, checker-board pattern of gently sloping treelined fields, interspersed with small areas of mainly deciduous or mixed woodland. The Mulbuie Ridge and other high ground is relatively less fertile, and large areas of it are given over to coniferous forestry, though there are frequent areas of open ground and heath. More -->
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We hope you find the site interesting, useful and informative, and would be delighted to hear your comments or suggestions.
To contact us, email info@black-isle.info.
About Black-Isle.Info
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Photographs above and
throughout the site by
Andrew Dowsett.
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