The first building on the right is the Poolewe Public Hall, which though but a small room suffices for the wants of the place (see [Part IV., chap. i.]).
On the same side at the further end of the village street is the Established church (Church of Scotland), and on the right is the Poolewe Inn or Hotel, kept by Mr A. Maclennan. Compared with the Gairloch, Loch Maree, and Kenlochewe hotels, it yields but humble accommodation. Some improvements are being effected, and I believe even ladies find the house comfortable enough. Mr Maclennan carries on a posting business. Boats can be hired for sea-fishing in Loch Ewe, and trout-fishing can generally be had on some fresh-water lochs.
On the flat plain behind and to the south of Poolewe and Moss Bank (called Bac Dubh), a large market, called the Feill Iudha, or "ewe market" ([page 104]), was held for generations, and was discontinued about 1720.
Mr Macbrayne's large steamers call at Poolewe once a fortnight. A jetty and storehouse, where goods are landed and kept dry, have recently been provided just below Poolewe church. There are considerable quantities of clayband and hematite iron ores to be seen both here and nearer Poolewe bridge,—evidences of those ores having been landed here (see [page 89]).
The Poolewe Free Church meeting-house, and the smithy, with a number of dwellings, are on the other side of the river. They are, properly speaking, in Londubh.
At the other side of the mouth of the river is Pool House, formerly the Londubh Inn. It has been enlarged and improved by Sir Thomas Edwards Moss, Bart., who has a lease of it with some shootings. He has erected a stable near the east end of Poolewe bridge, where the smithy formerly stood.
The hamlet or township of Londubh, including all the dwellings and buildings on the east side of the lower part of the River Ewe, has since the erection of Poolewe bridge become virtually a part of Poolewe. The name Londubh signifies "the black bog." I have heard a native suggest that the name of the metropolis of Great Britain is pure Gaelic, for the Gaelic for a brown bog (which the Strand is said to have originally been) is just Lon-donn!
Many of the houses in Londubh are on a flat hidden by the old sea terrace, and are therefore scarcely visible from the main road. Londubh, or Baile na h'Eaglais, was formerly called Inverewe, a name now only applied to Mr Osgood H. Mackenzie's house opposite. The most conspicuous house in Londubh is that called Kirkton House, a little above the road skirting Loch Ewe beyond Pool House. Londubh was formerly part of the Kernsary estate, and this house, where James Mackenzie, so often quoted in these pages, now lives, was then the home of the proprietors of Kernsary. Close to it is the old Inverewe burial-ground. A wall was built round it a few years ago. Here is the burial-place of the Kernsary family, formed out of the ancient church or chapel ([page 101]) which in old days occupied the site.