TODAY it is not unusual to find a lady stalking deer in the Highlands and islands of Scotland. One hundred years ago, few members of the fairer sex dared to go out on the hill in pursuit of stags and hinds, and those who did were invariably great characters who were held in awe by sportsmen and their gamekeepers.

Lady Sophie Scott, one of the first lady deer stalkers in the Highlands and islands, was born on April 6, 1874.

The youngest daughter of the fifth Earl Cadogan, who owned much of Chelsea in London, she grew up in the affluent surroundings of her father’s London home, Chelsea House, and the family sporting estate at Culford Hall in Suffolk, which boasted one of the finest pheasant shoots in East Anglia.

Lady Sophie began her stalking career in 1896 following her marriage to Sir Samuel Scott Bt, the heir to a banking fortune who owned the 55,000-acre Amhuinnsuidhe deer forest on the Island of Harris in the Outer Hebrides, as well as sporting estates in Devon and Northamptonshire.

She shot her first red deer stag at Amhuinnsuidhe in the autumn of 1896.

Throughout the Edwardian period Lady Sophie and her husband, Sir Samuel Scott, travelled up to Harris annually aboard their private steam yacht, the 445-ton ‘Golden Eagle’ to stalk deer and shoot grouse at Amhuinnsuidhe, staying in Amhuinnsuidhe Castle, the principal shooting lodge on the estate.

They entertained in great style, inviting many well-known guests to stalk on their property including the Honourable Sir Harry Stonor, considered to be the fourth best Shot in Great Britain; Lord Tweedmouth, noted for his ability to speak to the local people in their native Gaelic; and Lady Betia Herbert and Lady Mary Ward, both of whom shot their first stag at Amhuinnsuidhe in September 1910.

According to journals kept by Lady Sophie, deer stalking was the principal sporting activity at Amhuinnsuidhe at this time, although excellent salmon and sea trout fishing was available on various rivers and lochs on the property and superlative grouse and snipe shooting could be obtained on the offshore island of Taransay.

She notes that sportsmen went out on the hill in pursuit of stags on every day of the week other than the Sabbath or unless the weather was particularly severe.

Her guests often travelled long distances to the more remote beats in the deer forest, either on foot or horseback, or aboard the ‘Rover,’ a small steam yacht which was used to transport gralloched stags and sporting equipment between the quay at Amhuinnsuidhe Castle and various coastal locations.

Stalking diaries kept by Lady Sophie during the early years of the 20th-Century list record bags of 12 royal stags grassed at Amhuinnsuidhe in 1903, 130 stags in 1906, and 57 hinds in 1911, and note that an extra large stag weighing 16st 10lb was killed in the deer forest in 1909.

She records that venison not required for culinary use in Amhuinnsuidhe Castle was either given to her employees or distributed amongst the local crofting townships.

For much of the Edwardian period Lady Sophie and Sir Samuel Scott not only employed a Headkeeper and six keeper-stalkers based at strategic points in the Amhuinnsuidhe deer forest, but retained a blacksmith to shoe their stalking ponies and a large team of seasonally recruited ghillies, ponymen and river watchers to preserve game and to attend to sportsmen.

As chatelaine of both Amhuinnsuidhe Castle and Ardvourlie Castle, the subsidiary stalking quarters on the property, she alone was responsible for around 30 and 40 members of domestic staff, ranging from the butler and cook to the gardener and housemaids.

Following the outbreak of World War One in 1914, Lady Sophie immersed herself in voluntary work and rarely found time to visit Amhuinnsuidhe for shooting or stalking

She now confined her sporting activities to fishing on various English rivers and in July 1916 broke new ground by becoming the first lady to successfully catch trout on the Houghton Club waters of the River Test in Hampshire.

Lady Sophie resumed stalking at the end of the war in 1918 and over the course of the next two decades killed a total of 698 red deer stags in the Amhuinnsuidhe deer forest.

During the early part of this period her friend, King George V, presented her with a ‘park’ stag from Windsor Great Park in Berkshire in order to put new blood into the local herds, but unfortunately the beast died from sea-sickness aboard a steamer while being transported from the mainland to Harris.

In addition to shooting stags Lady Sophie was a keen hind Shot and would usually travel up to Amhuinnsuidhe from England once or twice during the winter months each year in order to kill hinds. Her game book records that between 1929 and 1937 she personally accounted for a total of 231 hinds on the property.

Sadly, Lady Sophie Scott died at her London home on November 8, 1937, at the relatively early age of 63 years, just three weeks after she had finished stalking deer at Amhuinnsuidhe. A true stalker to the end, she lies buried along with her husband in a mausoleum in the Amhuinnsuidhe deer forest!