Culrain
human settlement in Highland, Scotland, UK

Culrain (Cul Raoin) is a small village in Sutherland, Highland, Scotland. In 1650, the Battle of Carbisdale took place just outside the village.
Location
Culrain lies west of Ardgay, beside the Kyle of Sutherland about 5 mi (8 km) west from the village of Bonar Bridge, where several rivers converge to flood into the sea through lush water meadows.
It lies within the civil parish of Kincardine and Community council of Ardgay and District.
History
James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose was defeated here at the Battle of Carbisdale, in 1650 in what proved to be the beginning of his end. Although Carbisdale is the name of the nearest farm to the site of the battle, Culrain is the nearest village.
The Munro of Culrain family held the estate of Culrain in the 17th-century and it was apparently named after Coleraine in Ireland which the family's progenitor, George Munro, 1st of Newmore, had been governor during the Irish Confederate Wars. The estate later passed from the Munro of Culrain family to the Munro of Novar family.
Hugh Andrew Johnstone Munro of Novar devoted himself more to art than to politics at a time when the Highland Clearances were a live issue and he evicted tenants from his estate of Culrain. The initial evictions were entrusted to three men: James Stewart who was a sheriff-officer along with William Munro and Andrew Tallach from the nearby township of Morangie.
The public source identifies “Culrain” as human settlement in Highland, Scotland, UK. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Culrain, human and settlement.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2587653. VIAF identifies the subject as 316739802. Authority coordinates are 57.919, -4.406. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1650.
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This entry incorporates text from “Culrain” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.