Glendale is an attractive little community situated in an area of Skye known as Duirinish.
One of its attractions used to be an old watermill which seems to disintegrate from time to time and rise from its ashes again. When I first went to Skye in 1972 it was working. Then it fell into disrepair and became ruinous. Later it resurrected itself and became a tourist attraction once again.
In summer 2001 it was derelict again.
If you do visit it, do not go down to the mill in your car. When I revisited in 2001 I found that the steep single track road had disintegrated at the bottom so it was not possible to get to the turning area at the end. This necessitated a long and tricky reverse up a steep hill, round a bend, with a cliff on one side and on a very "dodgy" road
At Loch Pooltiel there is an old steamer pier, but the ships stopped calling there long ago. It was however repaired and it is now used by boats servicing the fish farm industry. It can be a good place to fish at high tide.
Glendale is prominent in the history of land reform. In the early 1880s the men of Glendale protested against the gradual erosion of their rights. Things got out of hand and the government over reacted by sending a gunboat to imprison four of the crofters. (Even now, British Governments are largely insensitive to the needs of those who elected them. If the poplace aren't rioting, they must be happy. If they are rioting, they are engaged in an unlawful protest. These guys certainly know how to have their cake and eat it.)
To cut a long story short, the Glendale protests eventually resulted in land reform and the crofters became the owners of their own crofts.
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Copyright © Gareth Boote 2000