They may seem less brutal than the events in the Highlands but the Lowland clearances were just as effective at displacing country dwellers: by 1820 an entire social class of cottars - peasant farmers who had a traditional claim on land in return for rent or service to a landlord and who made up a third of the population - simply disappeared.

BBC: Scotland's forgotten clearances

He said the Sutherland clearances were considered the most dramatic and best known of removals of families from land across the Highlands and Islands.

BBC: Attempts to topple Duke of Sutherland statue