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UK forward slash plan. You are listening to Stories of Scotland.

Welcome.

This week we are going panning for gold.

I'm Jenny.

And I'm Annie.

And yes, we are going all the way back to December 1868, where we are about to get caught up in a big Scottish gold rush.

Ah, there's gold in them there hills of Kildonan. And unsurprisingly, that's where we're going.

Kildonan is near Helmsdale in Sutherland in the far northeast of the highlands. In the early

1800s, Koldonan was a place of grave injustice, with tenants being brutally evicted from their homes by

the Sutherland Estates. Yes, the Highland clearances were particularly damaging in Sutherland.

Now, Sutherland covers a huge area in the Highlands

and the evictions there were ruthless,

with crofting tenants being pushed to the edges and coasts of Scotland

where they faced a bleak poverty,

often being pushed so far that they had no other option but to emigrate. And this is particularly heartbreaking because there's archaeological evidence going

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