CROFTING was once a byword for a harsh and unforgiving life that was only bearable for horny-handed sons of the soil. Now traditional Highland crofting is fast becoming the lifestyle of choice for stress-ridden city folk.

Well-paid young professionals are giving up big salaries and home comforts to tackle the rigours of crofting in some of the most inhospitable but beautiful corners of Scotland.

A record 875 people are seeking a croft and have registered interest with the Crofters Commission, the government agency that oversees this peculiarly Scottish form of living. The waiting list is up 16% on two years ago and almost half of those registered are under 40 years old, many with little or no practical experience.

Other signs of resurgence can be seen on islands off the west coast of Scotland, with the isle of Jura boasting seven new crofts, four on the isle of Eigg and two on Islay. Further new crofts are also planned for Colonsay, Westray, Orkney, Gigha and the Ardnamurchan peninsula.

Communities in these areas hope new crofts will entice families and people with essential skills to settle in the area. Grants of up £22,000 are available to assist crofters with building a home.

The Scottish Crofters’ Foundation (SCF), which runs courses for new and prospective crofters, plans to double the number of courses this year from three to six to meet demand. The course attempts to bring those with little or no experience up to speed on subjects such as the history of crofting, heritage, conservation, cultivation, funding and the new community right-to-buy.

John Bannister, 67, the course tutor and a retired police officer from the Midlands, has lived on a croft on Skye for 13 years. “Doctors and lawyers are two groups strongly represented among those who attend the courses and the most common motivation is to escape the rat race and the stresses of living in the densely populated towns,” he said.

Crofting came into being in the 19th century when landlords forced tenants from good farmland onto smaller and poorer pieces of land so that they could work on more profitable activities such as seaweed gathering and fishing.

Reform came with the crofting legislation of 1886 which protected crofters from harassment and eviction on condition that they lived on the land and worked it continuously.

Crofting went into decline in the 1950s but is now enjoying a renaissance. There are currently 33,000 people living on 17,700 crofts in Scotland. Last year, 388 first-time crofters threw themselves into the lifestyle.

One of those was Elly Welch, 26, who recently gave up her journalism career in Kingsbridge, Devon, to take up a 50-acre croft on the isle of Harris overlooking Loch Finsbay, along with her boyfriend Bruce Dudley, 34, a former shop manager and sailing instructor.

“The major factor in the move was the price of property and that our wages did not equate with house prices,” she said. “We had to work long hours to bring in enough money. We felt there had to be more to life.

“It is like the TV programme The Good Life up here but there is a lot of hard work to be done on the croft — building paths, repairing walls and digging ditches. It is a hand-to-mouth existence and we like it that way.”

The arrival of new crofters means a bright future for the Highlands, according to Jim Hunter, the former chairman of Highlands and Islands Enterprise who has written extensively on the history of crofting. “People have to stop thinking of crofting as a quaint left-over from the past and start thinking of it as a building block for a successful communities,” said Hunter.

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