One of the delightful, if smaller, gems in the Assynt landscape is this small bay on the coast about 1.5km south-east of Clachtoll (NC0526). It is at the mouth of a burn that drains the catchment of Loch na Creige Leithe to the north-east, and also the much larger one of Loch an Ordain to the east.
A considerable volume of water flows, at times, down the burn between the road and the bay, through a small gorge. Hence the siting on its north side, as it widens out, of a small horizontal or clack mill dating back perhaps to the late 18th century, and the name for the area (although, strictly speaking, bradhan refers to a quern or handmill).
This was the location of a joint meeting of members of the Field Club and the Assynt Historical Society on 6th July 2025. Prior to that, on 1st, we carried out a reconnaissance. The two visits are the subject of this article
Reconnaissance, 1st July
The mill
The path to the mill (photos 1-2) bridges the burn on slabs and, lower down, stepping stones cross back over both the burn and a mill leat. In and around the mill is an assortment of mill stones. They are obviously Torridonian sandstone, but a variety of sizes, textures and colours (photo 3).
There is a story that they were quarried, in the early 19th century, on the summit of Suilven, by one John Macleod of Achmelvich, where his descendants are still to be found, and then dressed and transported, partly by sea, to the mill site.
One of the problems with this story is understanding how they were lowered from the top to the foot of the hill. Nevertheless, anyone familiar with local walls and buildings from this era cannot deny that their construction required prodigious feats of strength.
At the top of a crag just north of the mill, we spotted the distinctive leaves and fruiting pods of a scarce member of the pea family, wood bitter-vetch Vicia orobus (photo 4). The Flora of Assynt (2002) maps this from 12 tetrads in the north-west of the parish, and describes it as ‘confined to cliffs and crags too steep to graze, within three km. of the sea’. Its beautiful flowers are white tinged with purple (photo 5, from Ian’s garden at Nedd, where it flowers later in the season).
Nearby, Gwen spied a distinctively-marked moth with a pronounced ‘proboscis’ (photo 6), appropriately named the snout Hypena proboscidalis. Its larvae feed on nettles and although widespread locally, it does not usually fly by day.
Down to the bay
We continued down the well-trodden path towards the bay (photo 7), viewing the steep-sided lower gorge from which the burn debouches on to the shore (photo 8). Conspicuous on the crags along the gorge and elsewhere nearby, well out of reach of grazers, were large plants of the succulently-leaved roseroot Sedum rosea, with tightly clustered heads of flowers tinged with purplish-red (photo 9). It is one of a small group of plants found locally on the coast and high on the hills, but not in between; others are thrift Armeria maritima and sea campion Silene uniflora.
We then walked along the edge of the bay to the far side (photo 10) to have a look at the rocks exposed there. There were dense clumps of the pink and white flowers of English stonecrop Sedum anglicum (photo 11) in small pockets of soil, and ancient woody plants of prostrate juniper Juniperus communis nana tightly hugging the upper parts of the cliffs (photo 12).
A rocky gulley
At this point we noticed a path descending a broad rocky gulley on the inland side of the flat grassland behind the beach (photos 13-14). This grassland presumably occupies areas on this Clachtoll croft that were once cultivated, but the whole area is now pasture.
Since neither of us had ever explored this area, we set off up the path. In damp areas fed by small springs there were signs of base-enrichment, probably from rocks in the ultra-mafic dykes which criss-cross this area.
The sward was close-grazed, but Gwen managed to find the shining green leaves of globeflower Trollius europaeus (photo 15), some four-square shoots of northern bedstraw Galium boreale, and other indicators such as flea sedge Carex pulicaris .and fairy flax Linum catharticum.
Well-pleased, we sat down in a slightly drier area and had our lunch in the sunshine, looking out over the bay (photo 16). Close by were a mating pair of common blue butterflies; earlier in the day we had seen two dark-green fritillaries flying fast over the heather.
Joint meeting, 6th July
Change of plan
When we reached the top of the upper gorge on the following Sunday, the burn was raging down it (photo 17), making the crossings very challenging. So, the nine who turned up, including a visitor from Falkirk, took themselves off to the top of path down the gulley, just to the west of the house at 139 Clachtoll, owned by Professor Denis Mollison, who joined us.
The path was passable, although steep in places (photo 18), and we were able to examine at our leisure grassy areas and crevices amongst the boulders along its edges. The first good find was hairy rosettes of pyramidal bugle Ajuga pyramidalis, a local speciality (photo 19). It is almost confined in the British Isles to the Northern Highlands of Scotland, and there is probably more in Assynt than the rest of the country put together.
Nearby, in sheltered crevices, were examples of two of the tougher small ferns, black spleenwort Asplenium adiantum-nigrum and sea spleenwort A. marinum (photo 20). The leathery fronds of the latter are normally confined to a narrow band around the coasts of Assynt, extending not far above high tide level. It appears to be not only tolerant of salt spray, but to prefer such habitats, perhaps a matter of competition.
However, there are a number of places locally, such as Creag Clais nan Cruineachd on the Clachtoll peat track (NC0627), where it is found on crags up to 3km inland, presumably ones reached by storm-driven sea spray.
Back to the mill
Reaching the bottom of the path, we made our way over to the mill (photo 21), where we were able to study the interpretive panel installed some time ago by the Historical Society.
It provides a very good account of how the machinery of such mills was constructed and controlled (photos 22-23). However, we could only speculate when it was built and for how long it had operated, certainly long enough to use and discard the number of mill stones now remaining on the site.
Tinies
Whilst some of us were thinking about the history of the mill, the attention of others had shifted to two aspects of the natural history in its vicinity.
The first was some small white flowers on long stems, springing out of tight rosettes of leaves with long sharp points (photos 24-25) rooted in the path. This was one of more showy examples of a genus of rather insignificant plants known as pearlworts Sagina species, specifically heath pearlwort S. subulata var. glabrata. 10 out of the 15 tetrads from which it is mapped in the Flora of Assynt (2002) are around the coast in the north-western corner of the parish.
The second was tiny black beetles (2.5mm long) that were flying in the vicinity of the mill and photographed on someone’s clothing (photo 26). One was caught for further investigation. Its identity was narrowed down by Ian, with some help, but only as far as a family, the Scirtidae, or marsh beetles, of which some 20 species occur in the British Isles, most of them difficult to identify.
The specimen was mounted up, photographed down a stereomicroscope (photo 27), and sent to Dr Garth Foster in Ayr, the acknowledged British expert in this family. He named it as Hydrocyphon deflexicollis, the larvae of which ‘live in fast streams, with the adults found along the edges or, on a warm day, flying from one exposed rock to another’. This is the northernmost point in the British Isles where it has, so far, been recorded.
Back to the road
After all that excitement, those present assembled for a group photograph (photo 28) and then made their way slowly back up the gulley to Denis’s house, where the tail end of the party enjoyed tea and cake provided by him.
Ian M. Evans and Gwen Richards