Background and history
On the southern shore of Loch a’Chairn Bhain, some 2km east of Ardvar, lies the isolated house and small estate of Rientraid (photo 1, NC1933). Its name may be a contracted version of two Gaelic words, righe, meaning the ‘bottom of a valley’, or, more elaborately, a ‘summer residence for herdsmen and cattle’ and traighe, a ‘seashore’ or ‘beach exposed at low water’ (according to Dwelly’s Illustrated Gaelic-English Dictionary, 1988).
In John Home’s Survey of Assynt in 1774, Reintraid [sic] was a substantial ‘farm’ of some 1241 acres, with a boundary running along the coast as far as Poll a’Ghamhna and thence up the Allt a’Ghamhna. It took in the northern corrie on Quinag (described therein as ‘the great Flat called the Byre of Quinack’), all of Sail Gharbh, with ground to its east, and the eastern flank of Sail Ghorm (photo 2).
Home describes the ‘Farm of Reintraid’ as ‘situate near the Sea Bank in a hollow surrounded by Wood’… ‘presently let to Mr Gordon who keeps it for grazing all the Year round for which it is very naturally adapted. There is no more Ground kept in tillage but the Infield about the Houses which is laboured by the People who herd the Cattle for their Master, who allows them to labour so much as pays them for their trouble’. The area of the Infield was 18 acres.
These ‘People’, tenants in 1774-1775, are listed in R.J. Adam’s account of the Survey (1960) as John Mckenzie, with his wife, three children and one ‘servant’, and Donald Mackenzie, with his wife and two ‘servants’. It should be noted that ‘most if not all of the servants must have been the elder children of other families’, who worked on the farm.
The ‘Farmstead’ they inhabited appears to be the site of the current house (photo 3). This is thought to have been built at some time during the early 20th century by Earl Jellicoe, a naval hero of WWI. A nearby jetty provided access to warships anchored in the sea loch during WW2, when the whole area was off limits to civilians. When Ian last visited Rientraid in 2008, it was being renovated by marine biologist Dr Duncan May.
Autumn visit
Saturday 11th October was the second day of Gordon Rothero’s customary autumn visit to Assynt in 2025. There was driving rain in the morning, but the weather forecast suggested improvement during the afternoon. We were looking for a small, previously unexplored, area not far off the road, and lit upon the coastal woodlands around Rientraid, where we spent a productive couple of hours.
We left the car at a large parking area at the western end of Ruighean Thomais (NC196330), at about 180ft above sea level, and started down the line of an old path, which used to run to the house. It crosses moorland at first, but we soon left it to explore adjacent woodland, and then worked our way down the course of a small burn.
The woodland was dominated by downy birch, with some quite old trees in places, but few other woody species, apart from the prostrate trunk of one old grey willow. This bore some of the Atlantic rainforest lichens, including tree lungwort Lobaria pulmonaria and red-eyed shingle lichen Pannaria rubiginosa. Badger snuffle holes were conspicuous in that area, and we also noticed them in other places.
An orange ladybird Halyzia 16-guttata was spotted on a birch trunk (photo 4). Ladybirds are uncommon in Assynt, and this is one of four British species that are not insectivorous, being thought to browse powdery mildews.
A variety of fungi were scattered through the woodland. Some were readily identifiable, such as chanterelles Cantharellus cibarius and a fine example of a cep or penny bun Boletus edulis (photo 5) but there were, as always, a fair number that we were unable to name.
Deer fence and shoreline
Dropping further down the hill, we crossed open ground into more woodland, where our way was blocked by a deer fence. This traverses a ‘shelf’ bearing a patch of old lazy beds (photo 6), on ground that must previously have been part of the cultivated Infield. It then runs north-east towards the coast. Just below the fence there was a large fleecy milkcap Lactarius vellereus (photo 7).
Gordon went ahead to prospect and discovered rusted holes at the end of the deer fence, right down on the shoreline, so we made for that area. On reaching it, Ian stayed put and made notes on the surrounding vegetation, while Gordon and Gwen explored the steep rocky coast to the east (photo 8).
They were rewarded with a good stand of the uncommon leafy liverwort brown scalewort Radula aquilegia on some wet shady rocks (photos 9-10). This is a species of sheltered wooded ravines and rocks by the sea in high rainfall areas, and is confined to the western side of the British Isles, mainly in Scotland.
We then crawled through the holes in the fence, and trekked west through tangled woodland above the shore until the stony bay came into sight (photo 11). Across the mouth of the bay a sheltered rocky headland bore numerous colourful cushions of Mougeot’s yoke-moss Amphidium mougeotii (photo 12). It is characteristic of wet siliceous rocks with just a hint of base enrichment, and not uncommon on the Lewisian gneiss.
Saltmarsh and way back
The stony upper intertidal areas in the bay were covered with a range of saltmarsh plants in autumn colours, including the fine reddish stems of saltmarsh rush Juncus gerardii (photo 13), with thrift Armeria maritima and sea milkwort Glaux maritima. Gordon added several species to his bryophyte list from substantial walls bounding the grounds of the house (photo 14). We then made our way round to the gate on the track leading to the house, thence back to the car.
Gordon chose to return through the woodland, but Gwen and Ian plodded up the track to the road (photo 15) and then east along the road. The final discovery of interest was a puffball (photo 16), embedded in the stones of the track not far above the gate (NC193333). This was later identified by Bruce Ing as the grassland puffball Lycoperdon lividum, for which there was only one previous Assynt record, made by John Blunt in the valley of the Allt nam Uamh in 2002.
Gordon’s total haul was 57 mosses and 23 liverworts, with some useful additions from an unexplored quarter of a rich tetrad (NC13V), which includes the upper part of Gleann Ardbhair, last visited by him and Ian on 13th March 2000.
Ian M. Evans and Gwen Richards