From Issue Nine of Hidden Scotland Magazine

A Weekend Exploring the Black Isle

A local’s guide to a weekend on the Black Isle, north of Inverness.

Words by Tori Gray · Photographs by Simon Hird & Tori Gray

Printed in Issue Nine of Hidden Scotland Magazine, Autumn and Winter 2024–25.

Tori Gray lives and works in Fortrose in the Black Isle. In this feature Tori shares what to see and do in the area, and where to eat, drink and shop like a local.

Meet your local guide

Tori Gray

I’m Tori, illustrator and owner of Harbour Lane – a bricks and mortar shop selling the work of over 100 different UK-based makers and small businesses. We are best known for our range of homeware that features my illustrations that we handmake to order in store. Our lampshades are our hero product with people buying one and then coming back for more and more. We have had our shop in South Queensferry for eight years and just moved up to the Black Isle in December so that we could open shop no.2. We live above the shop so we can juggle shop life with parenting our two young kids. In fact Calder was born in the middle of the shop renovations and was only just eight weeks old when we opened the doors to Harbour Lane Highlands.

How long have you lived in the Black Isle, and what brought you here?: We have lived in the Black Isle for just over six months now so I suppose we are still newbies to the area but we have completely fallen for it. We moved here in the depths of winter when I was eight months pregnant because we’d found a house with a shop attached that would allow us to juggle shop owner life and parenting without the need to commute. Both the house and the shop were ‘fixer-uppers’ but they were perfect for us and what we wanted to try and achieve.

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