Things you didn't know about... Sutherland

Anybody home?

Sutherland has only five inhabitants per sq km, compared with an average of 116 in the rest of Europe, making Sutherland one of the least densely populated areas in Europe. And with only around two per cent of the total land area under cultivation, Sutherland is the least farmed county in Scotland.

Sutherland is where the stars get hitched

Sutherland may look a little off the beaten track, but it is no stranger to the world of superstar celebrity. Madonna and Guy Ritchie got married in the beautiful, prestigious and exclusive Skibo castle in Sutherland, and chose Dornoch Cathedral, the spiritual heart of Sutherland, as the venue for baby Rocco's christening.

Sutherland helped the country get stoned

The small town of Brora in Sutherland once supplied stone to the whole nation. Both Liverpool Cathedral and London Bridge (the one famously transplanted to an Arizona desert) were constructed from stone mined in Sutherland.

The bog of the world

The Flows National Nature Reserve in Sutherland is the largest blanket bog in the world. At 11,353 hectares the area is home to some of the rarest bird and animal life, not just in Sutherland, but throughout Scotland. Some 73 per cent of the total area has been designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).

Refuge for the royals

No, not the Windsors in their Scottish retreat of Balmoral—that's in Aberdeenshire. During World War II, Sutherland's Carbisdale Castle (the last castle built in Scotland) played host to the Norwegian royal family, who were exiled to Britain following Hitler's invasion.

It was here in Sutherland that King Haakon VII of Norway forged the Carbisdale Agreement that, should Russian forces enter Norwegian territory, they would not stay there after the war. Although three years later the Red Army invaded Norway, they kept to the agreement and withdrew. Without that agreement signed in a Sutherland castle during 1941, how different the Cold War might have looked just over the North Sea from Scotland...

Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble...

Sutherland was the site of the last execution for witchcraft in Scotland. In 1727 an old woman was burnt to death in the Sutherland town of Dornoch, suspected of turning her daughter into a pony and engaging Satan. She was suffering from what we would today recognise as senile dementia. Nine years later the witchcraft laws were repealed.