The Croft House
A cottage built in the early 1800s and lived in until 1957, furnished with the kitchen, hearth and box beds of a crofting family.
Pete Goodwin — CC BY-SA 4.0 · HelgeRieder — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Holger Uwe Schmitt — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Holger Uwe Schmitt — CC BY-SA 4.0
The last family moved out of the croft house here in 1957, recent enough that people along this coast still remember houses like it being lived in. That is the quiet strength of the museum at Kilmuir: it is not a heritage village built for coaches but a township of eight genuine stone buildings, their thatch roped and weighted with stones against the wind off the sea, left much as they stood in the 1800s on a grassy shelf above the water. On a clear day the Outer Hebrides float on the horizon behind them. Each building carries a trade, and about half are furnished. The croft house keeps its kitchen and box beds, the smithy its bellows and anvil, the weaver's house its loom, the old shop its tins and scales, and the ceilidh house is where neighbours gathered for stories and songs through the long winter nights. The displays are dense, sometimes overly so, with family papers, old photographs and typed labels covering every wall, but together they give an honest picture of subsistence life on Skye before tourism arrived. An hour is enough; you will not need more. About four hundred metres along the road from the museum is Kilmuir cemetery, with its own small car park, and the tall Celtic cross over the grave of Flora MacDonald, who helped Charles Edward Stuart evade capture in 1746 and became the island's most famous daughter. The view from the graveyard is wider than anything at the museum itself, and it costs nothing. The museum sits about 35 minutes' drive north of Portree, some 18 miles, right beside the A855, and falls naturally on the Trotternish loop that also takes in Kilt Rock, the ruins of Duntulm Castle and the Quiraing, so treat it as a stop on that day rather than a destination in its own right. The car park is large and laid out for coaches and motorhomes; the paths between the buildings are grass and packed earth, easy enough when dry and heavy going after rain, so reckon with that if you are pushing a pram. Two things to know: it opens only from Easter to late September, Monday to Saturday with last entry at 16:30, and children under 15 go free with an adult, so a family pays only GBP 8 per grown-up.
A cottage built in the early 1800s and lived in until 1957, furnished with the kitchen, hearth and box beds of a crofting family.
A tall Celtic cross in Kilmuir cemetery about 400 m up the road, with a wider view than the museum and no ticket needed.
Bellows, anvil and a loom that show how the island once made most of what it needed by hand.
Kilmuir, Trotternish, Isle of Skye IV51 9UE
If you are already driving the A855, yes: the car park is right on the road, an hour covers it, and under-15s go free and enjoy poking around the cottages more than reading the labels. Driving up from Portree just for it is not worth it; the scenery on the loop is the stronger draw.
No. The site shuts completely from late September until Easter and is closed every Sunday in season. Kilmuir cemetery, a short way up the road, has its own small car park and is open all year, so you can still stop for the view and Flora MacDonald's grave if you find the cottages locked.