“The Muir” is a thriving community of almost 3,000 people, with dozens of active community groups offering everything from bridge to Brownies and from singing to soup-and-sandwich lunches. The Muir Hub is the village’s community centre, with a cinema, music and events venue and meeting spaces.
Glen Ord Distillery offers guided tours and tastings, and sells a range of whiskies and gifts. Visitors are also welcome at Muir of Ord Golf Club, and the skate park is very popular with the area’s young folk, not least because it has a roof.
Muir of Ord is a main service centre, with a railway station, primary school, health centre, churches, a library and a good range of shops; see the listings below.
Walking and cycling
The village lies between the Beauly and Conon rivers, surrounded by rich farmland producing cereals, potatoes and livestock, with traditional crofts on the hills around. With low-lying land on one side and hills on the other, it is perfect walking and cycling country. A selection of local walks is signposted from the village centre. The North Coast 500 and the Beauly Firth cycle loop both pass through the village, and National Cycle Network Route 1 comes close by.
The cattle tryst and the Black Isle Show
With routes through the hills to the north, south and west, Muir of Ord was for centuries a key centre of the droving trade. Cattle were driven here from the Highland glens to a great tryst, an old Scots word for a meeting place: a scene of wheeling and dealing, gossip and music, fun and games. Some cattle were driven on for weeks, grazing as they went, as far as London’s Smithfield market.
The legacy of that trade is the Black Isle Show, held on the same site. Every August people gather from across the Highlands and beyond for the North’s biggest agricultural show.
Photo: looking over Muir of Ord to the Beauly Firth. © Julian Paren, Geograph, CC BY-SA 2.0.