Lochinver Landscapes

You'll find this gallery tucked into Lochinver itself, a proper working fishing village on the northwest coast where the mountains rise straight up from the sea. Lochinver Landscapes focuses on the land and seascapes around here - prints, paintings, photographs - and it captures something real about the Highlands rather than selling postcards to tourists.

The space isn't vast. An hour's enough to get the measure of it, longer if you're genuinely interested in how artists respond to these mountains and lochs. The work tends toward landscape rather than portraiture, which makes sense given where you are. On a grey day - and there are plenty of those up here - it's a solid rainy-day option that doesn't feel like you're wasting time indoors.

This sits well with a stay at Clachtoll Beach Campsite just down the road, where you've got proper access to the coastline and some genuinely dramatic walking. The village itself has decent fish and chips if you're peckish after. Lochinver works best if you're already exploring the Sutherland coast rather than as a destination in itself. It's the kind of place you drop into while passing through, spend an hour looking at what local artists are doing, then head out again to the actual landscapes they're painting. That said, if you're staying nearby and the weather's turned foul, it beats sitting in your tent.