John D. Burns talks to Kat Hill about her new book, Bothy, and her delight in these remote shelters.
The pace at which our lives become increasingly complex seems to constantly accelerate. The computers, phones and artificial intelligence that we have created to release us from mundane chores seem, in fact, to have enslaved us. Who can resist constantly checking the phone to catch the latest trend and social media? Once we could escape the world by merely walking away from a phone that was attached to a wall. At one time there was a place where work, and even the cares of the world, could not reach us. Sadly, it seems that this time has passed and no matter where we are the electric machine clamours for our attention. Perhaps it is for this reason that the simple shelters scattered across the Highlands, known as bothies, have an increasing attraction.
Kat Hill is an author & researcher based in the Highlands of Scotland, and her work focuses on questions of landscape, people, and heritage in various contexts. She has a PhD from the University of Oxford (2011), where she was also a British Academy Postdoctoral Award holder. Most recently she held an Environmental Humanities fellowship at the Institute of Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh and completed an MA in Environmental Humanities at Bath Spa. She is a Fellow at the IAS, Princeton University for 2024-25. Kat lectured at Oxford, UEA and Birkbeck College for ten years before leaving academia and London for a life in Scotland to write. She currently works as a Community Engagement Coordinator for Highlands Rewilding and offers bespoke 1-2-1 tutoring. She is a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt and a European champion.
Travelling to bothies around the UK, this book reveals the history of these wild mountain shelters and the people who visit them. With a historian’s insight and a rambler’s imagination, she lends fresh consideration to the concepts of nature, wilderness and escape. All the while, Kat weaves together her story of new purpose with those of her fellow wanderers, past and present. She moves from a hut in an active military training area in the far-north of Scotland to a fairy-tale cottage in Wales. Along her travels, she explores the conflict between our desire to preserve isolated beauty and the urge to share it with others – embodied by the humble bothy.
To order your copy lick HERE
These are just a few of the Bothies you can find in the Highlands of Scotland. They are maintained by the Mountain Bothies Association which relies on donations to carry out its work. Donate to the MBA HERE
You can read stories about my travels to remote Bothies in my best selling book, Bothy Tales. I’m writing Bothy Tales II right now. Available in the Autumn.
Buy Bothy Tales HERE
