Staffin: Dinosaur Footprints and Coastal Landforms

Staffin brings together geological features, dinosaur footprints, museum collections and cultural history on Skye. If you’re looking for a hotel in Staffin, these themes can help you decide what to focus on during your trip: landforms and traces in the rock offer a different emphasis from collections or historical accounts. An Corran, Kilt Rock and Brothers’ Point each offer different geographical and thematic points of interest.

The Skye Ecomuseum

The Skye Ecomuseum, Druim nan Linntean, is a museum without walls in the crofting community of Staffin, known in Gaelic as An Taobh Sear. As an open-air museum, it includes twelve places of interest. This format differs from a single museum building: the Ecomuseum brings several sites together under one name, while the Staffin Museum and the Staffin Dinosaur Museum offer tangible museum content. For orientation, these are two different formats: an overarching open-air museum framework and individual named collections.

Rock, footprints and coastal landforms

An Corran lies on the southern shore of Staffin Bay. More than 15 large dinosaur footprints are preserved in situ on the surface of bioturbated sandstone there. In situ means the footprints remain in the rock at their original location. Bioturbated sandstone describes a substrate whose sediment has been altered by biological activity; this description connects the footprints with the geological surface on which they appear. Kilt Rock is a 60-metre-high sea cliff. The two features offer different points of interest: An Corran centres on individual footprints in sandstone, while Kilt Rock is notable for the height and shape of its coastal cliff.

The route to Brothers’ Point

Rubha nam Bràithrean, also known as Brothers’ Point, is a short walking route to the easternmost point of the Trotternish Peninsula. Rock pools at Rubha nam Bràithrean are visible at low tide. They are protected under the Skye Nature Conservation Order (2019) and should be viewed, not touched. If you include the pools in your plans, bear in mind that they are visible at low tide.

Dinosaurs in Staffin’s museums

The Staffin Museum houses a stone slab bearing the footprints of baby dinosaurs alongside the footprint of an adult dinosaur. The arrangement on a single slab places traces of young animals directly alongside those of an adult. The Staffin Dinosaur Museum’s collection includes Scotland’s earliest evidence of a dinosaur and actual dinosaur bones. These exhibits have different focuses: a slab with footprints from different age groups, and a collection that includes early evidence as well as bones.

Cultural history and early finds

Tobar Loch Shianta was considered the best-known healing spring on Skye. A suspected Mesolithic site is also located at the eastern end of Staffin Bay. Charred hazelnut shells from the site were radiocarbon dated; the calibrated date is approximately 6800–6600 BC. Together, these two aspects complement geological features and museum collections with archaeological finds and cultural history passed down through the ages.

Discover more destinations: Portree, Scrabster, Camusbane, Torridon, Boat Of Garten, Helmsdale, Halkirk, Dalchreichart.

For the regional travel overview: Highland.