As featured in Lonely Planet's Best of Travel 2024, Far North Scotland. Read more
Kildonan was well known in the 1860s due to the Great Sutherland Gold Rush attracting some 600 prospectors to the area , there were little settlements established along the burn. After little more than a year they were all but gone, due to regulations being brought in, including mining licences and then, with less gold being found, it became a less attractive oppurtunity.
Though you can still, today, apply for permission (following strict rules) to gold pan along the Kildonan Burn from the owners, Suisgill Estate.
Kildonan had been a crofting communitee, until in 1813 -19 the Highland Clearances forced them to move, either to other areas of Sutherland, or some took boats to Manitoba , Canada.
The main clan in Kildonan was the Clan Gunn, also the Mathesons, Mackays, Macbeths and Sutherlands.
Photos on this page by Annemarie Dunnet.