Colbost is a scattered hamlet

Hamlet

The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...

 on the B884 road, in the Glendale

Glendale, Skye

Glendale is a community-owned estate on the north-western coastline of the Duirinish peninsula on the island of Skye and is in the Scottish council area of Highland...

 estate, overlooking Loch Dunvegan

Dunvegan

Dunvegan is a town on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. It is famous for Dunvegan Castle, seat of the chief of Clan MacLeod...

 on the Scottish island of Skye

Skye

Skye or the Isle of Skye is the largest and most northerly island in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. The island's peninsulas radiate out from a mountainous centre dominated by the Cuillin hills...

.

The two main attractions of this small settlement are the The Three Chimneys

The Three Chimneys

The Three Chimneys is an award-winning restaurant in Colbost, Isle of Skye, Scotland. The restaurant was opened in 1985 by Eddie and Shirley Spear. It has won over 30 major awards and in July 2010, was named as one of the New York food critic Frank Bruni's top five favourite restaurants...

 restaurant and the Croft Museum.

Three Chimneys

The Three Chimneys is a multi-award winning five-star restaurant and hotel. On its annual Top 50 Restaurant

Restaurant

A restaurant is an establishment which prepares and serves food and drink to customers in return for money. Meals are generally served and eaten on premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services...

magazine listed the Three Chimneys as the 28th best restaurant in the world in 2002 and 32nd in the world in 2003.

Colbost Croft Museum

The Colbost Croft Museum, also known as the Folk Museum, is a simple open air exhibit, set in a garden. At the centre of this simple grassy garden is a perfectly preserved 19th century Hebridean

Inner Hebrides

The Inner Hebrides is an archipelago off the west coast of Scotland, to the south east of the Outer Hebrides. Together these two island chains form the Hebrides, which enjoy a mild oceanic climate. There are 36 inhabited islands and a further 43 uninhabited Inner Hebrides with an area greater than...

 crofter's black house

Black house

A blackhouse is a traditional type of house which used to be common in the Highlands of Scotland, the Hebrides, and Ireland.- Origin of the name :...

, of which there would have been thousands on Skye before the tragic Highland clearances

Highland Clearances

The Highland Clearances were forced displacements of the population of the Scottish Highlands during the 18th and 19th centuries. They led to mass emigration to the sea coast, the Scottish Lowlands, and the North American colonies...

. The house incorporates dry stone

Dry stone

Dry stone is a building method by which structures are constructed from stones without any mortar to bind them together. Dry stone structures are stable because of their unique construction method, which is characterized by the presence of a load-bearing facade of carefully selected interlocking...

 walls and a heather-thatched roof. Inside there is the simple furniture that would have been found in such a cottage as well as newspaper

Newspaper

A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...

 clippings related to the clearances. The smell of smoke is dominant, as there is no chimney to accommodate the open fire - just a hole in the roof. At the back of the garden there is more vegetation and two little huts where produce would have been stored, one of which contains a mock illegal whisky

Whisky

Whisky or whiskey is a type of distilled alcoholic beverage made from fermented grain mash. Different grains are used for different varieties, including barley, malted barley, rye, malted rye, wheat, and corn...

 brewing plant. Lying around the garden there are various agricultural tools including an old rusty plow. The self-service

Self-service

Self service is the practice of serving oneself, usually when purchasing items. Common examples include many gas stations, where the customer pumps their own gas rather than have an attendant do it...

 ticket office is housed in a small shack

Shack

A shack is a type of small house, usually in a state of disrepair. The word may derive from the Nahuatl word xacalli or "adobe house" by way of Mexican Spanish xacal/jacal, which has the same meaning as "shack". It was a common usage among people of Mexican ancestry throughout the U.S...

 with an upturned boat

Boat

A boat is a watercraft of any size designed to float or plane, to provide passage across water. Usually this water will be inland or in protected coastal areas. However, boats such as the whaleboat were designed to be operated from a ship in an offshore environment. In naval terms, a boat is a...

 for a roof. Sheep often wander into the garden to graze making this not only an open air museum

Open air museum

An open-air museum is a distinct type of museum exhibiting its collections out-of-doors. The first open-air museums were established in Scandinavia towards the end of the nineteenth century, and the concept soon spread throughout Europe and North America. Open-air museums are variously known as...

but also a living museum.

External links

• Colbost Croft Museum - Undiscovered Scotland article
• The Three Chimneys