On the edge of Loch Carron, in the Highlands of Scotland is the small village of Plockton. It has two more famous aliases – it’s ‘Lochdubh’ in the 1990s BBC series ‘Hamish Macbeth’ and ‘Summerisle’ in the 1973 film, ‘The Wicker Man’. It was also only a short 15 minute drive from the holiday cottage I stayed in last summer with my husband Andy when we had a lovely-week long break in Scotland.
I’ve been thinking about ‘The Wicker Man’ recently as its 50th anniversary was celebrated with a rerelease at the cinema on the summer solstice, 21st June. The pagan festivals associated with that date are what the film uses as its inspiration. Often described as a British Folk horror film, ‘The Wicker Man’ was directed by Robin Hardy and starred Edward Woodward as the devout Christian policeman investigating a missing child and Christopher Lee as the mysterious lord of the island. Britt Ekland appears as the pub landlord’s comely daughter, serving drinks and providing some sexual torment for our leading man along the way.
I’ve seen the film a few times and introduced my husband to it last year, he hadn’t expected so much singing! It’s an intriguing film, I like that the main character is so blinkered in his beliefs and absolute righteousness that he becomes the perfect sacrificial offering at the end. It’s quite a bold and terrifying finale, with the most gorgeous shots of the wicker man burning down as the sun sets.
It’s an atmospheric film, due in part I think to being largely shot on location, mainly around Scotland. There’s plenty of great websites out there where people have documented these. During our holiday last year, we were able to visit a couple of the most northerly locations used in the film – The Old Man of Storr and the village of Plockton.
The film opens with aerial shots of our leading man Sergeant Howie piloting a small seaplane flying over a beautiful and remote landscape. Clearly identifiable is the rock formation know as the Old Man of Storr on the Isle of Skye. It might look familiar as it’s one of those places that crops up in several films. As well as ‘The Wicker Man’ the rocks appear in the films ‘Stardust’ and ‘Highlander’. In 2012 director Ridley Scott used the location for a scene in his ‘Alien’ prequel ‘Prometheus’ where the protagonists discover clues to the origins of life on Earth.
It’s a surprisingly easy place to access, a short drive from the main town of Portree, just off the main road on the island. The rocks are about a 30 minute trek uphill from the pay and display car park. You need a reasonable level of fitness to make the climb comfortably, but you can stop and admire the view on the way up if needed. My main tip for visiting is to go very, very early in the day. We kept an eye on the weather forecast and when there was a blue-sky day predicted we were up at 5.30am to be there before 7am. Even then a good number of people had already arrived, but it was easy to park at that time (a few hours later it was hectic).
You can see from the photos that we had the most perfect weather. For comparison you should watch this fantastic video posted by fellow film location hunters on a rather less pleasant day https://youtu.be/XImgePWLOiE We spent a few hours up there in total, having a good wander around and taking way too many photographs. We ate our snacks with the most breath-taking views, they were so spectacular that we didn’t want to leave.
We visited Plockton on a much greyer day, with low cloud hanging over the loch. However, it didn’t stop us having a pleasant walk around the small village trying to recognise locations from ‘The Wicker Man’, and even enjoying an ice cream. The village itself isn’t much more than a few streets around the loch’s edge. It was used for the harbour of Summerisle in ‘The Wicker Man’, with the core of location filming being down in the Dumfries and Galloway region. A useful map of all the locations used can be found here.
In the film Sergeant Howie lands his plane in the water and when he finally gets the assistance from the locals he’s brought to shore by boat. We then see him walking along quite a distinct concrete causeway, which is still present today. It’s easy enough to find and, of course, we walked up and down it more than once. It turns out that one end is close to the building that was used as the police station in ‘Hamish Macbeth’. As it had been a very long time since I’d watched that series I decided to look up an episode on YouTube after our visit. I realised that the corner shop we’d bought our ice cream from was also the local shop in the show – but there was nothing to hint at that on the day. You’d have thought a postcard or some other memorabilia might exist – if only to make a bit of money out of the tourists. The only mentions of the village’s use as a filming location was on one panel in the small tourist information area, and a line on the website https://visitplockton.com/
It’s curious how some places embrace the legacy of being used as a filming location and others don’t really acknowledge it or seem embarrassed by it. It’s quite a contrast to somewhere like Portmagee in Ireland, a similar sized village, which was as base for Star Wars crew when they filmed some of the most recent trilogy on Skellig Michael. When we visited in 2017 there were Star Wars related postcards and t-shirts for sale and lots of nods to the filming. The link to the films is still celebrated with an annual ‘May the 4th Festival’ which I’d love to go to one year. https://www.maythe4thscififilmfestival.com/
The Highlands of Scotland are stunning, it’s easy to see why film crews make the trek up for various TV shows and films. My husband went often with his family as a child but feels he wasn’t the right age at the time to appreciate it, so it was lovely to go up there and help him rediscover it. I certainly want to go back and explore even further.
Bonus location – the airport from the start of Flash Gordon!
If you drive over the bridge linking the Kyle of Lochalsh to the Isle of Skye, look out on the right-hand side and after a few miles and you will see signs to a tiny private airstrip called Broadford Aerodrome. Most passers-by probably don’t realise that it features at the start of the gloriously over the top 1980 film ‘Flash Gordon’. There’s a great article here with Sam Jones remising about his time filming there in 1979. Being a film that we both love we knew we would make a stop to check it out on our holiday. As it was private land we tried to get a close as we could without trespassing – we’re very law-abiding folk. The security cameras by the main entrance and the rather large cows in a field at the other end of the landing strip were ample deterrent. It’s best to take pictures from afar and live to tell the tale, and yes, a Flash Gordon T-shirt is obligatory attire!
From scene to seen 
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