18. May, 2022
William Martin Conway and Strathpeffer
I have just added this image to the page titled in the menu "NW Art part 2." It is an attractive small watercolour of a view in the Strathpeffer region. It is titled on the back "Loch Kinellan, Strathpeffer. Sept. 4th, [18]87". On the WalkHighlands website, there is a modern photograph taken from an almost identical viewpoint. The little house, seen in the watercolour, is still there, albeit somewhat enlarged. Otherwise the view has changed little.
The artist, William Martin Conway (1856 - 1937), seems to have been a remarkable man, excelling in a number of different areas. He is described as an "art critic, politician, cartographer and mountaineer", and elsewhere as "an explorer." It seems that shortly after painting my little watercolour, he headed off for the Himalya, where he mapped parts of the terrain, moving on later to the Andes. Clearly the mountains of the far north led him on to greater things!
For those of you interested in my book The Immeasurable Wilds, I am expecting my advance copy any day now, and hope that it will be in the bookshops by the end of the month. I am sorry it has taken so long to emerge, and hope that you will think the wait was worth it. In the meantime, I am preparing pages for the website on Murdoch Mackenzie, and on the Sutherland Railway.