Wester Auchraw Croft: Standing Here Before Culloden

When guests step through the door at Wester Auchraw Croft, they often comment on the feeling of the place before they notice its age. There is a quietness here that seems to belong to another time. The thick stone walls, the hand-hewn cruck beams arching overhead and the gentle unevenness of the building all speak of generations who lived long before modern Scotland.

This is not simply an old house. It is one of Lochearnhead's rare surviving cruck-framed Highland crofts, a remarkable example of the simple homes that once shaped everyday life across the Highlands. Historic records suggest the present croft was built towards the end of the eighteenth century, during the period when Lochearnhead was developing into a small settlement of crofts for families moved from older farming communities.
Was Wester Auchraw Here During the Battle of Culloden?This is a question I am often asked.

The famous Battle of Culloden took place on 16 April 1746, marking the final Jacobite uprising and changing Highland life forever.

The answer is both yes and no.

The settlement of Wester Achra already existed. It appears on General Roy's military map of Scotland, surveyed around 1750, showing that people were already living and farming here shortly after Culloden. However, historians believe that the croft standing today was probably built later in the eighteenth century, replacing or succeeding an earlier dwelling rather than being the exact building that witnessed the battle itself.

So while these very walls were probably not standing on the day the Jacobite army marched towards Culloden, the land beneath them certainly carries that history. Families living here would have experienced the enormous changes that followed the defeat of the Highland clans.

Life in an Eighteenth-Century Highland CroftImagine waking before sunrise to tend cattle, gather peat for the fire and work small strips of land growing oats, barley and vegetables. Sheep wandered nearby while smoke drifted through a hanging lum in the roof before chimneys became common.

Inside, life centred around a single fire.

The croft was warm with the scent of wood smoke, drying herbs and fresh baking. Children slept in box beds tucked into the thick walls while neighbours gathered to share news, music and stories through the long Highland winters.

These were homes built from what the land provided. Stone came from nearby fields, timber was carefully selected from local woodland, and the distinctive cruck frame was fashioned from naturally curved trees that formed the building's graceful, boat-like skeleton. Many believe this construction echoes ancient building traditions that stretch back centuries in Scotland.

A Changing HighlandThe years following Culloden transformed life across Perthshire and the Highlands.

Traditional clan structures weakened, tartan and Highland dress were temporarily banned, and later agricultural improvements and the Highland Clearances changed how people lived and worked across the landscape. Yet crofts such as Wester Auchraw survived because ordinary families continued to farm, adapt and care for the land through changing times.

Every generation left its own mark.

Today, when sunlight catches the original beams or rain falls gently on the roof, it is easy to imagine the countless lives lived beneath them.

A Living Piece of Highland HeritageOne of the things I love most about Wester Auchraw Croft is that it has never become a museum.

It is still what it has always been: a home.

Guests arrive after long journeys, dogs curl up by the fire, breakfasts are prepared with eggs from our hens and herbs gathered from the garden, and conversations continue beneath timbers that have watched over Highland life for more than two centuries.
History here is not behind glass.

It is something you sleep beneath, wake beside and become part of, if only for a little while.

Perhaps that is the greatest privilege of staying in an old Highland croft. For a few days, you don't simply visit Scottish history.

You live inside it.