2023-10-06 14:53:00
It’s pouring twine outside. Rain hits the windows and turns the village street into a muddy path. Mighty clouds gather over Loch Nevis and move in stormy gusts over the turbulent water. Inside the pub, the men of the village have gathered at the bar, joking, laughing and encouraging one beer after another.
“The winter was long and hard,” says Davie Newton, taking a sip. For months, the winter darkness was dispelled by dim twilight for just a few hours a day; rays of sunshine were rare gifts. Now summer is in sight, but life in Inverie remains a challenge.
The handful of houses are located on the Knoydart peninsula in the west of the country, opposite the Isle of Skye. This mountainous, densely forested area is called Scotland’s last wilderness.
Anyone who wants to get there has to undertake a 29 kilometer walk through rough terrain or hope that the sea stays calm and a ferry comes across from Mallaig. “I hate this place,” Newton declares with a wink, orders another beer and mutters that he couldn’t live anywhere else.
The living room of the place
The Old Forge is one of the reasons for Newton’s loyalty to Inverie. The 20-year-old pub, which was listed by the Guinness Book of Records as the most remote pub in Great Britain, is the hub of the town with just 110 residents. “This is our shared living room. This is where we meet to chat and argue, this is where we celebrate birthdays and weddings and talk to the people sitting next to us about our worries.”
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Sometimes strangers show up in the pub. You come by ship to enjoy the luxury of seclusion, to wander in the mountains following the tracks of red deer or to watch the golden eagles circling at lofty heights.
Der Pub „The Old Forge” in Inverie
Source: Jutta Lemcke/www.srt-bild.de
Anyone who sits down as a stranger in front of the pub fireplace and orders a hot tea or a draft Guinness has no idea that “The Old Forge” has another special feature to offer. The pub is community property, it belongs to the whole village.
The previous pub owner wanted to convert The Old Forge into a fancy pub. “That would have been the end of our living room,” says Davie Newton. “That’s why we got together, collected donations, applied for subsidies and set up a foundation. After just over a year we had the money together and were able to take over the pub in March 2022.”
The pub is shared property
The pub is still struggling with teething problems, meaning it can only serve drinks. But the money collected is even enough to renovate the kitchen. That’s why warm dishes such as locally caught seafood and game ragout with meat from the forest will be on the table again in the foreseeable future.
Just like the food, the beer that flows from the tap is regional. It is produced by Samantha and Matthew Humphrey, who have been brewing barley juice since 2018 in a small disused church 500 meters from the pub.
Knoydart Brewery is run by Samantha and Matthew Humphrey
Source: Jutta Lemcke/www.srt-bild.de
The two fell in love with the town of Inverie years ago, gave up their jobs in London and now supply the pub and a few surrounding islands with eight different types of beer – one exclusive to “The Old Forge”. “Everyone knows everyone here, and when the pub runs out of beer, we roll over a few kegs,” says Samantha. She and Matthew also like to be seen in person in the village pub and even pay for their own beer out of solidarity.
A sense of community is the order of the day in Inverie. To avoid being subject to the whims of a landowner, residents founded the Knoydart Foundation in 1997 and, with the help of government and private support, purchased a large portion of the Knoydart Peninsula. Now they own the land on which they live and they decide democratically how land and property are used, with the preservation of nature, wildlife and natural resources being the most important criterion.
Next door is the tea room
The Foundation also owns the small, whitewashed house diagonally opposite the pub and post office, which is idyllically located directly on Loch Nevis. Sisters Isla and Rhona Miller leased it and turned it into a cozy little tea room with stunning water and mountain views.
When it’s stormy and raining outside and the pub is still closed, villagers and weatherproof guests gather at the sisters’ houses, sip Earl Gray tea from polka dot cups, taste carrot cake with sugar icing or leaf through last year’s magazines. Who cares about the date – here at the end of the world.
View of the small village of Inverie
Quelle: picture alliance / Loop Images
Tips and information
Arrival/Booking: Numerous airlines fly from Germany to Edinburgh or Glasgow in Scotland via transfer airports such as Amsterdam, London or Paris. You can easily get around by car or on a guided bus trip. Inverie on the Knoydart Peninsula is only accessible by water. There is a regular ferry service from Mallaig.
Inverie and the Knoydart Peninsula are also visited as part of a boat trip offered by Lernidee Erlebnisreisen. The comfortable “Lord of the Glens” for a maximum of 42 guests takes you to the islands of Skye, Eigg and Iona as well as through the Caledonian Channel from the west to the east coast of Scotland. Eleven days at fixed dates from 5310 euros, www.lernidee.de
General information: The website www.theoldforge.co.uk provides information about “The Old Forge”. Undiscovered Scotland provides information about Inverie at www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk. Information about Knoydart can be found at www.visitknoydart.co.uk.
Participation in the trip was supported by Lernidee Erlebnisreisen. Our standards of transparency and journalistic independence can be found at axelspringer.com/de/werte/downloads.
This article was originally published in June 2022.
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