Loch na Keal and James Boswell during their tour of the Hebrides; they were entertained there by Sir Allan MacLean, head of the Maclean clan. Both Johnson and Boswell published accounts of their visit. Its most famous owners were the eccentric Mitford family. Nazi sympathiser Unity Mitford spent her final years on the island. Following the death of their father Lord Redesdale, the island was inherited under Scots Law by the surviving Mitford sisters and not his wife, as Lord Redesdale had willed it to his deceased son Tom. When their mother died in 1963, Nancy gave her share to Jessica, who bought
Nancy Mitford house was built on land nearby. The family stayed in Asthall Manor for seven years, and it became the basis of many of the family scenes which Nancy was later to portray in her semi-autobiographical novels. Growing up proved a difficult process for Nancy. Unable to form a relationship with Pamela, the sister nearest to her in age, she was bored and irritated by her younger siblings, and vented her feelings by teasing and tormenting them. Although there was undoubtedly cruelty in her taunting—the other children, led by Tom, formed a "Leag (sic) against Nancy"—her teasing was also, according to