Wainwright’s Plockton Years
Article by Chris Butterfield
From his first visit in 1939, Scotland held a lifelong spell over Alfred Wainwright. That early week on Arran, ending with villagers singing “Will ye no’ come back again?” as the boat pulled away from Brodick, stayed with him for the rest of his life. After the war, he returned north of the Border repeatedly, beginning with his first post-war journey in 1946, revisiting Arran, and exploring the Highlands and western seaboard, travelling by bus, by train, and on foot. In time, every holiday he took was spent in Scotland; he never wished to go anywhere else.
Among all the places he visited, one village came to mean more to him than any other. In Wainwright in Scotland (1988), his coffee-table collaboration with landscape photographer Derry Brabbs, he wrote of Plockton with unmistakable affection. It had been, throughout the 1970s, the “priority holiday venue of my wife and myself,” and he explains that they were welcomed each year by “a kind friend providing her cottage for our annual visits.” He never names her, yet the importance of this gesture is evident. Wainwright describes how they “always arrived in eager anticipation and departed with reluctance,” returning again and again to the same little house above the bay.
That single, understated line, “a kind friend providing her cottage for our annual visits”, is all he ever revealed. The woman herself, and the story behind that friendship, remained entirely unknown to his readers…
And it is here, in that very omission, that the real story begins.
While working on my first book, Wainwright Memories, with Andrew Nichol and my family, we travelled to the Highlands of Scotland, specifically to Plockton. Andrew and his wife, Bernice, had holidayed there with Wainwright and Betty in 1988 at a lodge just outside the village. In the months leading up to our visit in October 2021, I had been fortunate enough to locate the very lodge they all stayed in during that period, now known as Duirinish Holiday Lodges. Even the site owners today were unaware of the Wainwright connection. Andrew was visibly moved returning to the place he had shared with Wainwright decades earlier. The purpose of the trip was to retrace Andrew’s steps through the Western Highlands, where untold stories of the Lakeland legend lay.
A few years later, in the summer of 2025, I posted a short story on my Alfred Wainwright Facebook Page. To my complete surprise, I noticed a comment from a kind lady called Sheila Sly, who said she had once stayed in a cottage frequented by Wainwright. I was so taken aback that I read it twice. Could this have been the very cottage in Plockton? I contacted her privately and told her my story, and she confirmed what I had hardly dared hope. Against all odds, it was the very cottage I had been searching for all these years. Wainwright’s friend, and the owner of the cottage at that time, was called Peggy Moore.
Sheila and her husband, Mel, from Sunderland, had stayed at the cottage in May 2025 to celebrate their wedding anniversary. Inside the cottage, they had found several guestbooks dating back decades. They had no idea of the Wainwright connection until a rainy afternoon when they were unable to go out. Mel suggested that Sheila look at the May 1979 entries, the month and year of their marriage. She was astonished to find Wainwright’s signature on that very page. “Wow, look at this,” she said. They then looked back through earlier years and found that Wainwright had signed the books between April and June from 1971 to 1979. The discovery was pure gold, and I cannot thank Sheila enough for sharing this information with me.
Coincidentally, during Wainwright’s stay in Plockton in 1979, he sent a postcard to his good friend Ken Shepherd in Kendal. His daughter, Rosemary Gutteridge, kindly donated this postcard to my archive. In it, Wainwright wrote about the terrible Highland weather that week, and his description is almost identical to what he wrote in the cottage guest book.
Peggy died in 2011, and today a memorial bench dedicated to her overlooks the loch at the rear of the cottage. Sheila remembered speaking to the neighbour next door, whose father had once lived there, who said that Peggy held great parties and that people loved to visit. Sheila tried to imagine Wainwright being there among them. Peggy never married or had children, but it was wonderful to learn that the property had remained in the family.
Sheila kindly put me in touch with the current owner, Peggy’s niece, Lizzie Milligan Manby, who runs a farm in Lincolnshire. Lizzie was invaluable in providing the history of her aunt’s Wainwright connection. She explained that Peggy had originally been a nurse in Liverpool and had bought the cottage in Plockton in 1966 for her holidays. During the late 1960s, while staying at the cottage, Peggy met Wainwright and Betty at the bottom of her garden, sitting on a bench and admiring the stunning views over Loch Carron.
That day marked the beginning of a friendship that lasted for many years. Peggy was invited to stay with them in Kendal, and Wainwright gave her a signed copy of his newly published book A Lakeland Sketchbook. He also shared details of his next project: producing a series of Scottish Mountain Drawing books. Throughout the 1970s, he gifted her a signed copy of each volume as it was published. He even gave her an original drawing of the Applecross mountains from Plockton.
Returning to the guest book entries, it made perfect sense that the first one was from 1971, as the previous spring Wainwright and Betty had married in March 1970 and had spent their honeymoon in York shortly afterwards. It was equally interesting to see his full signature. The only other time I have seen his full signature was in The Eastern Fells guidebook advert published in the June 1955 edition of Cumbria magazine. Perhaps he felt it was safe to sign fully in the Highlands, where he was unlikely to be recognised. Out of all the guest books I have seen, these are the only examples of his full signature. He even wrote Betty’s name in some of them.
Just like the lodge in Duirinish, the cottage in Plockton (Taobh Lochcarron) on Bank Street, where Wainwright and Betty stayed, is still available as a holiday let. Since writing this article, the guestbooks have been relocated to Lincolnshire for safekeeping, which I think was the right decision. If you are looking for that Wainwright experience outside the Lake District, then Plockton is the place to visit.
I cannot thank Lizzie enough for sharing the history of her aunt and for sending me photographs of the gifts Wainwright gave Peggy all those years ago. Thanks also go to Sheila and Mel for initiating the conversation and sharing images from their recent visit to the cottage. Sheila later described the entire experience as serendipity. She had never heard of my page, but after talking with her husband about Wainwright and messaging her sister about Plockton, my page suddenly appeared in her feed—a coincidence, or is our data being shared without us even realising? However it happened, I am very thankful.
Ever since my book was published, there has been that underlying niggle of not knowing where in Plockton Wainwright stayed during those earlier years in Scotland with Betty. It has been deeply satisfying to put this story to rest finally. It really does come down to that quiet stroke of luck that brings the right person into your path precisely the right moment.
