Ullapool

A historical perspective, drawn from the Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland: A Survey of Scottish Topography, Statistical, Biographical and Historical, edited by Francis H. Groome and originally published in parts by Thomas C. Jack, Grange Publishing Works, Edinburgh between 1882 and 1885.

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Ullapool, a village and a quoad sacra parish in Lochbroom parish, NW Ross and Cromarty. Backed to the E by a hill 900 feet high, the village stands on the NE shore of salt-water Loch Broom, 50 miles by water ESE of Stornoway, and 32 by road NW of Garve station on the Dingwall and Skye railway, this being 11¾ miles W by N of Dingwall. With Stornoway it communicates by steamer, and with Garve and Dingwall by coach. It was founded in 1788 by the British Fishery Society, and was intended to be a beautiful and spacious town on a regular plan. But, in consequence of the great declension which took place in the herring fisheries, its progress was arrested until, having passed from the proprietorship of the Fishery Society to that of the late Sir James Matheson, Bart., of Lewis, it underwent great improvement alike in its physical condition and in its appliances for traffic and communications. It exhibits, over the face of its terraced promontory, several lines of houses, most of them whitewashed, and either slated or tiled. In the foreground are a neat harbour and a breakwater-the harbour safe, spacious, and well kept. The principal buildings, both public and private, are all arranged along the beach facing the loch, and extending from end to end of the village. Three streets of houses behind, parallel, spacious, and provided with garden-plots, were lined off for the poorer fishermen, but have never been finished. Still the village is well suited to be a noble watering-place, its beach being capital bathing ground, its climate pleasant and salubrious, and its mountain scenery highly picturesque. There are a post office, with money order, savings' bank, and telegraph departments, a branch of the National Bank, a good hotel, an Established church (1829; 600 sittings), a Free church, dating from Disruption times, and a large public school (1877). The quoad sacra parish, constituted by the General Assembly in 1833, and reconstituted by the Court of Teinds in 1859, is in the presbytery of Lochcarron and the synod of Glenelg. The minister's stipend in £150. Pop. of village (1836) 730, (1861) 908, (1871) 752, (1881) 897; of q. s. parish (1871) 2624, (1881) 2573, of whom 2240 were Gaelic. speaking.—Ord. Sur., sh. 101, 1882.

An accompanying 19th C. Ordnance Survey map is available, or use the map tab to the right of this page.

Note: This text has been made available using a process of scanning and optical character recognition. Despite manual checking, some typographical errors may remain. Please remember this description dates from the 1880s; names may have changed, administrative divisions will certainly be different and there are known to be occasional errors of fact in the original text, which we have not corrected because we wish to maintain its integrity. This information is provided subject to our standard disclaimer

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