Ballachulish Part 2 - Slate and Murder

In Part 1, I recounted how the medieval Lordship of Lorne had passed from the MacDougalls to the Stewarts in the 14th century then from the Stewarts to the Campbells in the 15th. At both of these changes, the outgoing clan had nevertheless been left with a slice of territory, the Stewarts' being Appin, the land between Loch Leven and Loch Creran. Then, in the mid 16th century, the Appin Stewart chiefs began parcelling out their estate amongst their kinsmen. One of these was Alan Stewart, grandson of the 3rd Stewart of Appin, who in the 1540s thereby acquired Ballachulish Estate consisting of three farms on the south shore of Loch Leven - Ballachulish, Laroch and Brecklet.

Ballachulish Estate outlined red on Aaron Arrowsmith's map of 1807. Note Brecklet at the east end. Laroch is where "Slate Quarry" is marked.

In 1692, the year of the Massacre of Glencoe, the laird was John Stewart, 3rd of Ballachulish. It appears that the tenants of the two eastern farms on his estate - Laroch and Brecklet - were clansmen of the neighbouring MacDonalds of Glencoe which was the target of the Massacre. According to John Prebble's book, soldiers were quartered at Laroch and Brecklet and he narrates a local tradition that one of the soldiers at Brecklet - a Campbell as well - tipped his hosts off the night before the slaughter giving them the chance to escape. The family concerned were named Robertson and note, therefore, how we have members of one clan (MacDonalds of Glencoe) living on the lands of another clan (Stewarts of Appin) and having a surname (Robertson) different from that of their chief (MacDonald) and which is actually the name of an entirely unrelated clan (Robertsons of Struan). This was, in fact, very common and dispels the misunderstanding that the members of a clan all lived on their chief's land and had his surname.

A MacDonald of Glencoe pondering on his identity

Anyway, "in or about the year 1697" the laird of Ballachulish opened a slate quarry on his estate at Laroch. Here's another insight into Highland history: just five or so years after the Massacre of Glencoe - an event emblematic of the usual perception of Highland clans, involving as it does rebellion, feud and slaughter - and the neighbouring chieftain is engaging in the rather more prosaic commercial activity of exploiting the mineral resources of his estate. But this doesn't mean that the Stewarts of Ballachulish had suddenly gone soft. They hadn't - the next laird, Alexander, was out for the Jacobites in the 1715 and 1745 Rebellions and fought at the Battle of Culloden. It's often said that the clan system came to an end at Culloden - as if it continued in full vigour until 1746 and then suddenly vanished in a puff of smoke. It didn't. The Highlands and the clans had been in a state of transition since early in the 17th century and the Stewarts of Ballachulish - looking Janus-like simultaneously one way as martial Jacobites and the other as commercial quarrymasters - encapsulate the transition perfectly.

Kenneth "Og" [Young] MacKenzie, 4th Earl of Seaforth, 1661-1701. Late 17th century Jacobite clan chief par excellence pictured here because he's not wearing the tartan garb you'd expect a clan chief to wear. They lived in two worlds: Highland warlord one moment, commercial businessman dealing with the Lowlands - and dressing that part - the next. Picture credit: ArtUK

The earliest slate quarries in Scotland worked on an industrial scale (as opposed to for purely local demand) were those at Easdale and the neighbouring "Slate Islands" about 10 miles south of Oban. These began around 1630 and an early customer for Easdale slates was the nearby Castle Stalker. Upon slate being discovered at Ballachulish in the 1690s, experienced workers were brought in from Easdale to teach the locals the trade. By the 20th century, buildings in Scotland not roofed in slate were exceptional but in the 17th and early 18th centuries the majority of buildings - even those in towns and prestige buildings like churches and most castles - were still thatched. Thus, it's said there was only one slated house in Greenock in 1712 and only four in 1716. The laird of Gairloch's house was known as Taigh Dige - the Moat House - but when he built himself a new one (pictured below) in 1738, the fact that it was slated caused such a stir locally that it was known as Taigh Dige nan Gorm Leac - the Moat House of the Blue Slabs. 

Flowerdale House, Gairloch

Slate quarrying was thus something of a niche industry until the second half of the 18th century when demand began to increase with the onset of the Industrial Revolution and the dramatic expansion of towns. So much so that, "some time prior to 1760", [See EDIT at the end] John Stewart, the 5th laird of Ballachulish, opened a second quarry, this time on Brecklet Farm to the east of the original quarry on Laroch Farm. Note again the proximity to one of the more recognisable dates in Highland history: 1745. We've already mentioned the Stewarts' involvement in the Jacobite Rebellions and as we're now in the 1750s, no discussion of Ballachulish in that decade would be complete without mentioning the Appin Murder.

I may return to do a separate post about the Appin Murder but briefly for now, the estate immediately to the south of Ballachulish, Ardsheal (see the map at the end of this post), had been forfeited to the Crown due to the involvement of its owner, Charles Stewart, in the 1745 Rebellion. (Despite the laird of Ballachulish's involvement in the Rebellion, he seems to have escaped forfeiture.) Ardsheal was placed under the management of another local landowner, Colin Campbell of Glenure, who acted as the Crown's factor. On 14th May 1752, while travelling from Fort William to Kentallen, Glenure was shot and killed on the road about a mile south of Ballachulish Ferry (where the bridge over Loch Leven is now). Two men were immediately suspected by the authorities: Allan Breck Stewart, who was alleged to have pulled the trigger, and James Stewart - known as James of the Glen - who was Ardsheal's half brother and was alleged to have set Allan Breck up to kill Glenure and assisted his escape.

The Appin Murder was woven into Robert Louis Stevenson's novel "Kidnapped"

Allan Breck disappeared a few days after the murder but James of the Glen was arrested and put on trial at Inveraray before the Duke of Argyll as Lord Justice General and a jury, eleven out of fifteen of whom were Campbells. Amongst the witnesses were the laird of Ballachulish who'd been walking along the road with Glenure moments before he was shot: he testified to the fact that Alan Breck had been in the area in the hours before the murder. The case against James was very circumstantial but he was nevertheless found guilty after what's widely considered to have been a miscarriage of justice. He was hanged at the south side of the Ballachulish Ferry and his body was left hanging in a cage there for 18 months as a dire warning to others who might be tempted to molest officials of the Crown.

The year before the Appin Murder, 1751, witnessed a rather more mundane event in Argyll: the compilation of a new valuation of all properties in the county for tax purposes - the 18th century equivalent of today's Rateable Values and Council Tax bands. I mention this to illustrate again the mixture of the banal and the dramatic in this corner of the Highlands in the 1740s & 50s: from rebellion and murder to slate quarrying and tax revaluations! Despite the occasional mayhem which is what everybody remembers, ordinary life went on. You can view the full 1751 valuation here but below is an extract showing the properties of some notables: at the top are the three farms - Ballachulish, Laroch and Brecklet - comprising Ballachulish Estate. Further down you can see the soon to be late Colin Campbell of Glenure's property and below him is his kinsman John Campbell of Balliveolan: it was Glenure's taking of James of the Glen's farm of Glenduror on Ardsheal Estate in 1751 and giving it to Balliveolan that supposedly formed one of James' motives for murder.

Extract from 1751 Land Tax Valuation Roll from Scotland's Places

Having digressed off into the Appin Murder there, I'll break here and resume the tale of slate quarrying at Ballachulish in the next post. I leave you with a map of the locations mentioned in this post.

[EDIT 6 May 2020 - I think I'm wrong about the second quarry on Ballachulish Estate, at Brecklet, having been opened in the 1750s.

I based myself for that date on the Second Statistical Account (here - page 247) but on re-reading that, the quarry referred to there as having been opened "some time previous to 1760" seems to be the original quarry at Laroch which all other accounts say was opened in the 1690s. Bremner says the second, Brecklet quarry was opened "about the year 1780" and that accords with the SSA which was written in 1841 and speaks of the second, Brecklet quarry having been in operation "for upwards of fifty years". This revision of date for the second quarry rather dilutes my point about about the contemporaneity of the dramatic and the banal but even so ... Sorry.]