This picturesque, isolated beach in Cape Wrath, on the northwest tip of
Scotland’s mainland is known as Sandwood Bay, and is long-reputed to be haunted.
There is one story in particular, quite well known to the area from the 1940s. It involves a
crofter and his son from nearby Oldshore Mor, who were out collecting firewood one autumn evening.
As the bay was a well known ship’s graveyard, due to the numerous vessels wrecked there
before the Cape Wrath lighthouse was built in 1828, the sand was always abundant with wood.
The beach, they said, was deserted for the duration of time they were there.
As night drew in, and they loaded up their pony and set off back to the grassy hills,
their steed suddenly reared and staggered in fright.
It was then that the father became aware of a bearded sailor standing nearby. He recalled the
stranger’s attire: sea-boots, a sailor’s cap, and a dark weathered tunic with brass buttons.
The stranger, who he swore had not been there a moment before, shouted to them that the wood they
had taken was his property. With this, the duo promptly untied the wood, dropped it and fled.
In 1949, what is thought to be the same figure was seen by members of a fishing party.
The bearded man was seen walking along the crest of a sand-dune, before disappearing behind a small
hill. Those who saw him believed that he must have been a poacher, so a young man from the party set
out towards the dune to confront the him. When he returned, white-faced and shaken, he said that he
could find no one, and what’s more there was not a single footprint in the sand, other than his own.
There is another anecdote, told by three men from Kinlochbervie, who had travelled six miles
to Sandwood Bay in search of a lost sheep late one night, although no year is given.
As they approached the bay one man saw a large piece of driftwood nearing the moonlit shore.
When he attempted to wade out to fetch it, he says he was stopped in his tracks by the appearance of
a black whiskered man standing amongst the rocks a short distance from him. All three men saw
him there, and, they said, there was something unnatural and unearthly about his appearance.
Within a few seconds, the stranger had vanished in the moonlight, as if merging into the rocks.
In 1953, there was another sighting. This time by three friends from Edinburgh who were picnicking
on the sand dunes to the south east of the bay. They described the familiar figure of an old-time
sailor as he watched them from a knoll, before taking two steps back and fading to nothing.
Just southeast of the bay is the ruin of Sandwood cottage. In 1971 ghost hunter and author, Peter
Underwood described the structure as ‘perhaps the most remote and solitary habitation in the whole
of Scotland’. During the 1960s, a fisherman by the name of Angus Morrison, spent a night at the
cottage. He reported that he had heard footsteps outside, and the sound of tapping at a window.
When he looked towards the window, he said he saw the face of a bearded man peering into the
cottage. But when Angus stepped outside to investigate, there was no one there.
On another occasion, he says he was awakened in the cottage by the sensation that he was
being suffocated by a thick, black mass, that seemed to be pressing down on him.
In the early 1970s, two visitors from England camped within the walls of Sandwood Cottage.
Going on the description of their ordeal which was detailed in Peter Underwood’s book A Gazetteer of
Scottish Ghosts, Sandwood Cottage, now no more than a ruin, must have then still been somewhat
habitable. During the night, they were disturbed when, allegedly, the whole structure vibrated,
and there were loud noises which sounded to them like doors being flung open and slammed shut,
windows being smashed, and heavy, horse-like galloping. It all seemed to originate, they said,
from above their heads. No explanation was ever discovered, although I’d personally
wonder what noises a storm would cause in such an isolated and exposed location.
One theory often mentioned is that the bearded man was a living local man named James McRory
Smith, who was somewhat of a hermit. He lived out his later years in the area,
hunted game in the hills, collected driftwood and fished at the beach.
His house was one and a half miles east of Sandwood Bay; an isolated cottage called
Strathchailleach (strathallech). As James McCrory Smith had only lived in the area since the 1960s,
this might explain the so called ‘sightings’ by Angus Morrison and the English campers at
Sandwood Cottage. But interestingly, before his death in 1999, when ill-health forced him
back into society, James McRory Smith himself claimed to have experienced, loud noises and
an unseen presence at his own home. A presence which he was sure was neither animal or human.
Regarding the alleged apparition on the beach, it’s suggested that he was one
of the many shipwrecked men to lose his life off the shore of the treacherous Sandwood Bay.
Just as England, and some other regions around the world have famous tales of White Ladies, Scotland
claims its own fair share of female apparitions known as Green Jeans, or Green Ladies. One such
tale brings us to the historic county of Caithness in the far north eastern reaches of the Highlands.
The Castle of Mey, known for some time as Barrogill Castle, stands midway between the
villages of Dunnet and the John O’Groats. It was once the Scottish home of the Queen Mother, and
although for years she denied the existence of the apparition said to haunt the upper floors of the
building, it was revealed in a 2008 book entitled The Castle and Gardens of Mey: The Queen Mother’s
Home in Caithness, that she was not only acutely aware of the phantom’s presence, she had herself
experienced the Green Lady on several occasions, and referred to her as ‘Poor Lady Fanny’.
The Queen Mother, along with many of the castle’s visitors since her majesty’s death in 2002,
have reported feeling an unseen presence. There have been reports of disembodied footsteps,
doors inexplicably opening and closing, and lights switching on and off for no apparent reason.
Some of the castle staff are wary of going up the top floor of the
building, where Fanny Sinclair supposedly jumped to her death.
The events surrounding the tragic love story between Lady Sinclair and Andrew Cruickshank
resemble a legend dating back hundreds of years, although this particular story only unfolded
during the late 19th century. That being said, as with centuries old tales of forbidden love,
this story is plagued by contradictory scenarios, and it’s unclear as to what exactly took place.
I’ll begin with the most well known and commonly told version.
The 29-year-old Fanny Sinclair, who was the daughter of the 14th Earl of Caithness,
James Sinclair, fell in love with a man thought to be well beneath her socially.
His name was Andrew Cruickshank, and he was a ploughman and stable hand at the Castle of Mey.
The love struck couple began a secret relationship, but when
Lady Sinclair’s father found out about the love affair and that they planned to marry,
he banished his daughter to her bedroom in the uppermost room of Castle Mey’s tower.
There she spent most of her time, unable to meet with her intended groom. One of the windows in
the tower was even bricked up, so that she could not see him in the fields at work.
Shortly thereafter, he was discharged from his duties and exiled to England.
The grief stricken woman never saw him again, and heartbroken, threw herself from the remaining
open window of the tower. Barely alive, her crumpled body was carried to her bedroom,
where she died on October 11th, 1883. This is the legend. Another version of the story says that,
in her heartbroken state, Lady Sinclair became increasingly unwell, and died of tuberculosis,
which was then known as consumption.
When I looked into the official story and searched newspaper records from the time, the events stated
are different again. According to newspapers like the John O’ Groat Journal, the St. James’
Gazette and the Aberdeen Evening Press, Fanny Sinclair become unwell a week before her death.
The official story says that she lanced an abscess; the wound then became infected and
she died of uremia, which is a build up of toxins in the blood that often leads to kidney failure.
There is no official mention of a relationship with Andrew Cruickshank or Lady Sinclair
throwing herself from a tower, which may not be surprising. Because if the story of
forbidden love were true, it’s likely that it would have been hidden from the public.
But 132 years later the plot thickened again.
In 2015, tour guide of the castle Katy Henderson said that she knows that the story is true,
and that Andrew Cruickshank was none other than her great, great uncle.
Whatever the case may have been, Lady Sinclair, who was well known in Scotland for her
charitable efforts towards poverty-stricken children, was laid to rest on October 17th
1883 in the churchyard of Canisbay’s Church of Scotland, four miles east of the Castle of Mey.
Back in the 1950s, a mountaineering author and lecturer at the university of Glasgow
by the name of Kenneth W. Richmond climbed the snowy Ben Ime mountain
in the southern Highlands, on the lookout for ptarmigan, the small Scottish grouse.
As he neared the top of the mountain, Richmond stopped to eat his sandwiches when,
in the distance, strolling along the snow covered landscape, he saw a man approaching.
As the stranger drew closer, Richmond could see that he was in a black suit;
better attired for an office building than the cold, inhospitable mountains of Scotland. When
he stood a few feet away, Richmond noticed that he was an elderly gentleman. He looked unwell and
bore a parchment like complexion. Richmond called out to him and asked where he had come from.
Completely calm, apparently unaffected by the climate, as he was not even out of breath,
the gentleman replied that he had come from Arrochar, a village at the head of Loch Long.
It was a journey that would have taken the best part three hours to traverse; and hardly
seemed possible given the man’s attire, not to mention his apparently advanced age. Richmond
asked him if he’d seen any birds on his way up. The old man pointed in the direction from which
he’d come and said that he’d seen some speckled water hens close to the foot of the mountain.
With that the suited stranger abruptly declared that he must be going;
he had to catch the six-ten train from Arrochar to Glasgow, but first he had to stop in Glen Croe.
Richmond looked at his watch. It was 3:30. There was no way the man would have made the journey
in the time he had left. As Richmond had left his car in Glen Croe, he offered the man a lift to the
station. But the stranger insisted on making his own way, saying that the walk would do him good.
He bid Richmond farewell, turned away and began down the mountain. A perplexed Kenneth
Richmond hesitantly continued his lunch and then momentarily glanced downhill, but there was no one
there. He panicked, got up, took several strides down the slope and looked around him. The wide
expanse of snow-covered landscape was completely deserted, and there were no footprints to be seen.
During his own descent, Richmond paused and noticed a group of ptarmigan precisely where the
old man had said he’d seen them. Concerned for the stranger’s welfare, Richmond travelled to Arrochar
station to learn that there was no six-ten train to Glasgow. Wondering if the man been lost or had
an accident of some kind, he asked around for more information. He was assured by the station’s staff
that no man matching that description had arrived that day, or any other day that they could recall.
“It was a strange business indeed”, was Kenneth Richmond’s conclusion,
adding that he would never again climb Ben Ime.
19-year-old Paul Gander was a mechanic employed by the Macrae and Dick motoring company,
then situated on Strother’s Lane in Inverness.
It was late on Monday December 10th 1968, and Paul, having a heavy work load,
worked late into the night in the dealership’s body shop.
Two other employees had accompanied him that evening, but deciding to call it a night,
they packed up and left Paul alone to his work.
At around 10pm, Paul stopped working and began gathering up his tools.
As he did, he caught the glimpse of a dark figure in the corner of his eye.
He said he turned, and was frozen to the spot when he saw, quite clearly,
a man-like form, shrouded in black glide along the garage floor before disappearing.
The Aberdeen Press and Journal quoted Paul as saying:
This was not the first or last strange occurrence at the Macrae and Dick company.
In 1966 another employee came forward and told of a similar experience.
This led to theories about the old horse stable that once stood on the site,
and the restless spirits of long-dead stable hands and even phantom horses.
Little more than two weeks after Paul Gander’s experience,
32-year-old petrol pump attendant John MacLeod
was working the night shift on December 26th when he
witnessed events he said he could not explain.
It was a quiet night, John said, and the last customer
had left some 20 minutes earlier.
He was in the garage office listening to the radio when he was startled by a persistent car horn.
Thinking it was coming from outside, John went to investigate, but traced the sound to his own car,
a black MG Saloon, which was parked inside the building.
As he approached, the horn stopped. When he returned to the office the horn began again,
and once again it stopped as John approached.
This routine continued for the next hour.
John was adamant that no one else was in the building, and no one
could have entered without passing him first.
He checked the mechanics of the horn but found no fault.
Earlier, John MacLeod had laughed at the claims of
Paul Gander and the other employees who had made claims of a haunting,
but admitted that he could find no explanation for his own experience. He said:
There is a grim little-known legend attached to the graveyard of Fearn Abbey in Tain, Ross County.
Known as the Light of the North,
the 800-year-old structure stands about 13 miles north-east of the town of Invergordon.
It’s said that many years ago, although frustratingly I couldn’t find an exact year,
a local farmer on the very evening of his wife’s funeral, went to the home of
a buxom young lady who lived next to Fearn Abbey and asked her to marry him. As it was
well known in the village that the farmer of a wealthy man, the girl accepted his proposal,
and by nightfall, wasting no time, the two had taken to the bedroom of the young lady’s house.
When the girl’s mother unexpectedly returned home,
she was shocked to find her daughter naked in bed with the man who had that day buried his wife.
Outraged, she reminded the farmer that his wife was not yet cold in her grave. He laughed in
response, and said that she was already cold enough when she entered the ground.
Despite his audacity and contemptuous tone, he quickly got dressed and left the house.
As he made his way home, he looked across to the Abbey’s churchyard and his wife’s freshly
filled grave. There, through the evening’s mist, he saw the shrouded figure of his wife stood
next to the grave, staring at him. Completely overwhelmed with fear, he ran back to his house,
where it’s said that the relatively young man died of a stroke two weeks later.