The A87 #2 - Invergarry ghost junction and the Faichem loop

Last year, I wrote a post (here) about what I call ghost junctions - major road junctions that have moved due to realignment of the roads concerned but where the original junction - the ghost - remains, either as a local junction between minor roads or just a faintly discernable footprint. For some reason, I forgot to mention in that post a particularly fine ghost junction - the one at Invergarry between the A82 and the A87 to Kyle of Lochalsh and Uig on Skye. But this, the second post in the series on the A87 (map in the first post), is the perfect place to remedy that omission.

Note first that, with all pictures in this and subsequent posts like the one below with a Google Streetview link under it, if you click the link it will take you to the position in GSV so you can have a virtual look round.  

Invergarry A82/A87 junction - Google Streetview

Pictured above is the present day junction viewed from the south and the bridge over the River Garry with the A87 going off to the left. But this only dates back to 1932 and before that the junction was at an older bridge 600 yards downstream (to the right/east). On the map below (click it to enlarge), the red line is the original approach from the south to the old bridge and junction and the blue line the current:-

Ordnance Survey 25 inch map, 1899

The old road and bridge still exist and are driveable and, fortunately for armchair ghost junction enthusiasts, the Google Streetview car has been along them. Approaching from the south, the old road leaves the present road just before the new bridge here - yes, you can turn onto that track on the right there! Continuing east, you'll end up at the old bridge over the Garry and the old junction on its far side.

Old junction at Invergarry - Google Streetview

The road building history around here is that the first of General Wade's military roads was the one up the Great Glen from Fort William to Inverness built in 1725-27. It passed along the opposite (east) side of Loch Oich but a more general criticism of the Wade roads towards the end of the 18th century was that

"having been laid out with other views than promoting commerce and industry, are generally in such directions, and so inconveniently steep, as to be nearly unfit for the purposes of civil life; and in those parts where they are tolerably accessible ... the use of them is very much circumscribed from the want of bridges over some of the principal rivers."

Thus was born in 1803 the Highland Roads & Bridges Commission (HRBC). Set up by an Act of Parliament and under the engineering superintendence of Thomas Telford (most famous for the Menai Suspension Bridge and author of the words just quoted), the HRBC provided half of the costs of approved road and bridge building schemes, the other half to be met by the local landowners.

One of the earliest Parliamentary Roads (as they became known) was one down the west side of Loch Oich, with a bridge across the River Garry and linking with the military road on the east side of the loch at each end, and then, branching off from this, a road west up Glen Garry, along the north bank of the river and all the way to the west coast at Kinloch Hourn. Thus was built the old bridge and junction at Invergarry in about 1805-06.

Military road (1725-27) in yellow, Parliamentary (Highland Roads & Bridges Commission) road (1805-06) in red. Bartholomew's half inch map 1902-06 via National Libraries of Scotland

Invergarry Old Bridge (1805-06) viewed from downstream (the east)

Part of the HRBC's work had been to upgrade the road network from one designed in the pre-industrial era for the movement of troops to one adapted to the needs of commerce during the onset of the industrial revolution. 120 years later, there was another imperative - to adapt the road network to the needs of motor traffic. Hence in the 1920s, there began two major road improvement schemes in the Highlands, the A9 from Perth to Inverness in 1924-28 and the A82 from Tyndrum to Inverness via the Glen Coe and the Great Glen in 1931-33 (contemporary news article about that here). The latter scheme included the construction of a new concrete bridge at Invergarry and the re-arrangement of the A82/A87 junction in 1932.

The present bridge (1932) and A82/A87 junction looking south

So, turning on to the A87 at last, the sign beside the road tells us it's 50 miles to Kyle of Lochalsh:-

 

Invergarry - Google Streetview

Note that the 1930s fingerpost at the top of this post indicates 52 3/4 miles to Kyle. So for all the diversons and re-routing the A87 has undergone over the years, it seems to be only 2 3/4 miles shorter between here and Kyle. You find the first such diversion only 200 yards beyond the far (west) end of Invergarry, less than a mile from the junction, at a sign pointing right to Faichem:-

Faichem junction - Google Streetview

This is a loop of the old single track road left when the A87 between Invergarry and Kinloch Hourn junction (4 miles) was doubled in the mid/late 1960s - I don't know the exact date except the new road is marked on the OS 1:2,500 map surveyed in 1967. Anyway, the Faichem loop rejoins the new road about a mile further on and the Google Streetview (GSV) car has been along it so go and have a look - you don't miss anything on the main ("new") road.

400 yards on from where the Faichem loop rejoins the main road, another stretch of the old road opens on the left (here). It's not a loop but remains as an access to Loch Garry Dam. The GSV car has been part of the way along. As there's a timber yard and sawmill down here as well, the traffic along this stretch of old road is heavier than on the Faichem loop so it gives a better idea of how this bit of the A87 may have looked when it was till a single track road in the early 1960s.

The Ordnance Survey One Inch Map, 7th ed. drawn before this part of the A87 was doubled. The current line of the road is in orange leaving the Faichem loop (A to B) and the branch of the old road to Loch Garry Dam and timber yard (C to D).

 

Half a mile further on we're beside Loch Garry and there are loops of the old road left as lay-bys when the road was doubled in the mid/late 1960s.

 

Beside Loch Garry - Google Streetview

Below is approximately the same spot in the 1930s:-

After another two miles, we reach a junction on the left sign-posted for Tomdoun and Kinloch Hourn and that's a good point at which to break until the next episode of the A87.

Kinlochourn junction - Google Streetview

       

The A87 #1 - Invergarry

Have you got a favourite trunk road?

I do. It is, I can say without a moment's hesitation, the A87 - the road that runs from Invergarry on the A82 in the Great Glen to Kyle of Lochalsh then across to Skye and ending at Uig, the ferry terminus for Harris and the Uists, 98 miles away.

It's my favourite road because it's the one where you turn west to take you deep into the North West Highlands. The A87 used to be (just before my time, unfortunately) where the single track roads began and it takes you to some of the most impossibly evocatively named places in Scotland - Kinloch Hourn, Kintail, Stromeferry, Plockton, Kyle of Lochalsh, Sligachan, Portree ... 

It also ticks a lot of my boxes because most of it was built by the Highland Roads and Bridges Commission in the early 19th century (partly replacing an earlier military road). There are original HRBC bridges to be seen (Shiel Bridge), early 19th century wayside inns still in business along its length (Cluanie, Sligachan) and it runs past castles (Eilean Donan) and a Jacobite battle site (Glenshiel) not to mention numerous estates, lodges and manses. More recently, there's stuff flooded by mid 20th century hydro-electric developments, old ferry crossings now bridged, ghost junctions and by-passed but still driveable lengths of single road track road - in fact the A87 has had its route considerably altered (and greatly lengthened) over the years in consequence of successive improvements during the 20th century to accommodate ever increasing motor traffic demands. So this is the first of a series of posts about stuff that interests me along the A87 but be warned - stuff that interests me doesn't necessarily interest everyone! 

First, the village of Invergarry.

Approaching Invergarry on the A82 from the south - Google Streetview

Invergarry lies at the foot of Glen Garry where the River Garry empties into Loch Oich, the middle and the smallest of the three lochs of the Great Glen (the others being Lochs Ness and Lochy). Loch Oich drains northwards into the River Oich (which in turn empties into Loch Ness at Fort Augustus) and forms part of the Caledonian Canal. 

 

Until WW2, MacBraynes ran a daily service along the canal with paddle steamers acting like a sort of branch railway line between Fort William and Inverness. They didn't stop at Invergarry itself, though, and the nearest call was about 2 miles south of the village at Laggan where the canal enters the south end of Loch Oich. That was because the loch was too shallow for a steamer at Invergarry and, in fact, it had to be dredged during construction of this section of the canal (1816-22) to create a navigable channel along its length. (OS maps mark a pier ioat a spot called Portmacdonell about half a mile north of the village (here). This may have been for shallow draught barges for goods (timber?) but the regular passenger steamers never stopped here.)

A MacBraynes paddle steamer sails north up Loch Oich. The mouth of the River Garry is visible on the right.

Also at the south end of the loch and on its far side was Invergarry Railway Station. This was a stop on the short lived Invergarry & Fort Augustus Railway which ran up the Great Glen to Fort Augustus from a junction on the railway from Glasgow to Fort William at Spean Bridge. I'm guessing running it up the south east side of Loch Oich presented less of an engineering challenge than running it across the mouth of Glen Garry even if that did result in an inconveniently sited station for the village of Invergarry. The railway opened in 1903 but closed to passengers in 1933 and to all traffic in 1946. I'm going to write a separate post about the I&FA Railway in the future so shall leave this intriguing topic here for now except to observe that the reason for its failure was that, as it didn't run all the way from Fort William to Inverness, it couldn't compete with MacBraynes' canal steamers which did. Meanwhile, a charity is working to restore Invergarry Station and re-lay a short section of track as a museum. You can read about that here.

 

Invergarry Station in its heyday. Note the sloping roof of the entrance to the underpass under the further track - it all seems pretty over-engineered for such a marginal branch line! Picture credit - Freetalk1

Invergarry Station today with the buildings all gone. The village is on the other side of the loch approximately opposite the islands in the distance. Picture credit - The Loose Canon

There's lots more interesting information about Invergarry Station with pictures then and now here.

Back in the village, this used to be the headquarters of the MacDonell of Glengarry clan whose territory extended all the way up Glen Garry and across the watershed to the west coast and including Knoydart peninsula. They also had about 10,000 acres (4,000ha) on the east side of Loch Oich called Aberchalder. Their castle was at Invergarry and its ruin still stands just south of the village on a rock above the loch called Creag an Fhithich (pron. "Craig an EE-yich" and meaning Raven Rock. This was also the MacDonells of Glengarry's war cry.) 

 

Invergarry Castle from above. Picture credit - Sean Ruddy

Many castles look very impressive with turrets and battlements and whatnot but never saw a day's action in their life. Not Invergarry, though, which has literally been through the wars almost since the day it was built in the mid-17th century (which is pretty recently as castles go). In 1654, "Glengaries new house" (i.e. castle) was burnt and the remaining structure "defaced" in the aftermath of the ill-fated Glencairn Rising (a Royalist rebellion against the Cromwellian occupation of Scotland). It was repaired around 1670 but Glengarry's Royalist sympathies mutated into Jacobitism and the castle was besieged by Government forces during the 1689 Rising (Bonnie Dundee, Killiecrankie etc.) and taken in 1692. It then became a Government garrison until the 1715 Jacobite Rising during which Glengarry laid siege to his own castle on behalf of the rebels and seized it. In the wake of the collapse of that rebellion in 1716, though, it was accidentally burnt by the Government soldiers who had re-occupied it. The Government built Fort Augustus instead and Invergarry Castle lay empty until it was repaired again in the 1720s. After a period of occupation by an English iron-master called Thomas Rawlinson who was using the local forests for fuel for iron smelting (more about that here), Glengarry resumed residence in 1731.

Conjectural view of Invergarry Castle about 1700 by Charles McKean

The MacDonells were out for the Jacobites again in the 1745-46 Rebellion although their regiment was led by the chief's son Angus while the chief himself stayed out of things in the interests of "it wisnae me" deniability. Bonnie Prince Charlie spent a night at Invergarry Castle in August 1745 on his march south from Glenfinnan to Edinburgh. He also spent part of the first night after the Battle of Culloden there but Old Glengarry was not at home - he was in Inverness protesting his loyalty to the Duke of Cumberland but that didn't prevent the castle being burnt in May 1746 on the latter's orders. It was never rebuilt and the MacDonells moved to a new house built around 1760 about a quarter of a mile to the north.

MacGibbon & Ross's "The Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland from the 12th to the 18th centuries, Volume III, page 620

In plan, Invergarry Castle was an L-plan tower of five stories with an oblong stair tower in the angle and a round stair tower at the north-east corner. Most of the north west wing (top left of the plan) collapsed long ago. The oblong stair tower in the angle was still standing until the second half of the 20th century as can be seen from the picture below taken in 1952 (viewed from top right of the plan):-

Oblong stair tower still standing in 1952. Picture credit - Canmore, larger resolution image here

... but it has since collapsed in big lumps as you can see in the photo below taken from the same angle:-

Stair tower collapsed. Picture credit - Keith Fraser

These last two photos are both from roughly the same angle as the conjectural view of the castle when complete further up (from the top right of the plan). Due to its very unstable curent condition, you can't go inside Invergarry Castle but you can go for a virtual walk past it here.

The best known chief of the MacDonells of Glengarry was the 15th, Alasdair Ranaldson MacDonell (1773-1828), his fame due in no small part to the stunning portrait of him by Raeburn seen below.

 

The title of Brian Osborne's book and the blurb on the back cover sums him up neatly:-

Landowner, sportsman and soldier, Alasdair Ranaldson Macdonell epitomised the image of the Highland clan chieftain. ... Contradictory, confused and controversial, Macdonell had a high public profile and an aggressive, extravagant nature. He embraced the new - the conversion of clan chiefs from paternalistic leaders to rent collectors, the coming of the sheep, the Clearances and the transport revolution - yet he clung fondly - at times outrageously - to the ways of an old Scotland.

 

Amongst his outrages was an attack on labourers building the canal in 1816. Armed with guns and axes, MacDonell and his henchmen threatened them with their lives and stole a boat. No prosecution ensued but it's poetic justice that he died in January 1828 from injuries sustained escaping from the wreck in Inverscaddle Bay, Loch Linnhe, of the steamboat Stirling Castle which he'd boarded on the canal at Laggan to sail to Glasgow. 

 

The ruin of Invergarry Castle with the house built around 1760 the Glengarrys lived in latterly seen in 1840. Picture credit - National Libraries of Scotland Maps

Glengarry had been en route to Edinburgh to consult his lawyer about his debts which, thanks to an extravagant lifestyle beyond his means, amounted to a staggering £80,000 - about £9 million in today's money. This was despite the annual rental of the Glengarry estates having increased from £700 in 1761 to £5,000 in 1800 (about £400,000 today) through a ruthless policy of clearing clansmen and re-letting their land to southern sheep farmers at much higher rents: according to one source, on farms where once there had lived 1,500 people, there now (1820s) lived only 35. 

But do the math and the enhanced income barely covered the interest on the debt never mind portraits by Raeburn so Alasdair Ranaldson's heir's trustees decided there was no option but to sell up. The east end of the estate including Invergarry (about 56,000 acres/23,000 hectares outlined on this map) was sold to the Marquis of Huntly in 1836 with the MacDonells retaining for now Glenquoich (pron. "Glen KOO-ich" - green on this map) and Knoydart on the west coast. In 1840, Glenquoich was sold for £32,000 to Edward Ellice, a wealthy Canadian of Scottish ancestry involved in the fur trade (bio of Ellice here and more about Glenquoich Estate here). The same year Huntly, having been declared bankrupt, sold his estate to Lord Ward for £91,000. Also in 1840, Glengarry, emigrated to Australia but returned after a few years to settle on the only remaining bit of his family's ancient patrimony, Knoydart, where he died in 1851. His heir, another Alasdair, sold Knoydart in 1853, the purchaser making it a condition that all the remaining crofters - 400 people - be removed in one of the last but grimmest episodes of the Clearances. MacDonell, now just the owner of the ruin of Invergarry Castle and the family mausoleum at Kilfinnan on Loch Lochy, then emigrated to New Zealand never to return. Finally, in 1860, Edward Ellice's son, another Edward, bought Invergarry Estate from Lord Ward for £120,000 (about £15m today) so that, when he inherited Glenquoich upon his father's death in 1863, Edward Ellice, Jnr. became the owner of the whole of the former MacDonell of Glengarry estate except Knoydart.

Invergarry House

In 1869, Edward Ellice, Jnr. commissioned a magnificent new mansion house from the Scottish architect David Bryce on the site of the previous house of the 1760s which had been described in the 1850s as being in a "rather ruinous state". In Bryce's signature yellow sandstone with corbelled out "cheekbones" between the bay windows and pediments above (see another example of this in Edinburgh here) and with its own gas-works (here), all that the new house retained from the time of the MacDonells was a Carron Ironworks fire grate of 1760 (picture of that here) and the "formal avenue of trees down to the lake" (Loch Oich) a traveller in 1800 remarked upon and pictured below:-

Picture credit jojomiguel via Tripadvisor

Since 1958, Invergarry House has been the Glengarry Castle Hotel and if you can't afford to stay there, you can go for a virtual walk past it here.

Beyond the "big house", Invergarry is a typical estate village created by the Ellices in the second half of the 19th century. Prominent is the Invergarry Hotel, pictured below, built in 1885 to replace an older inn on the same site: Burns buffs will be interested to know that the bard's friend, the carpenter said to have made his coffin and eponym of his song "John Anderson, my Jo", lived here in the 1830s with his daughter and her husband who was the inn-keeper (and who by coincidence also died in a steamboat accident, this time the Comet II at Gourock in 1825 while on passage between Inverness and Glasgow via the Caledonian Canal).

Invergarry Hotel (1885). Picture credit - Highland Living

Invergarry in 1871 as seen on the Ordnance Survey 6 inch map. Click to enlarge.

Other buildings built by the Ellices in Invergarry as the infrastructure of their estate included a church (1864, by the very prolific Inverness architect Alexander Ross who's best known work is probably Duncraig Castle at Plockton), a school (1868), a bank, a cottage hospital (1880, by John Rhind who also designed the hotel), the factor's lodge (estate manager's house - 1870), a shop and mill (the latter predating the Ellices but nevertheless having their signature porch) and post office as well as a number of estate workers' cottages (for example here and here) and even almshouses for retired workers. Many of these buildings bear the Ellice crest (as seen on the hotel here), most are listed buildings and with the whole set amongst ornamental trees such as copper beeches, yews and monkey puzzles, I'm surprised the village isn't a conservation area.

The former bank buildings in Invergarry

The Ellice family still owns about 17,000 acres of the east end of Glengarry Estate although Glenquoich and a lot of the west end of the Invergarry section of the estate was sold off in the 1940s, much of it to the Forestry Commission. Nowadays, they call their estate Aberchalder & Glengarry Estate (here) reflecting the shift in its centre of gravity eastwards to being centred on Aberchalder Lodge at the north end of Loch Oich.

Well, these are just some of the things that interest me around Invergarry and we haven't even turned on to the A87 yet! I'll remedy that in the next post. 

Invergarry House (now Glengarry Castle Hotel). Aberchalder Lodge is the white house on the far side of the loch

The Meikle Gruinard ferry, Strath na Sealga & the road to Achneigie

In my last post, I narrated how, in 1877, Meyrick Bankes, the owner of Letterewe Estate in Wester Ross, had tried to prevent Osgood MacKenzie, the owner of the neighbouring Kernsary Estate (and founder of Inverewe Gardens), from fishing on Dubh Loch because it would, Bankes claimed, disturb the deer on his surrounding hills. In fact this wasn't the first time Bankes had had a legal run in with one of his neighbours over the protection of the tranquility of his estate - ten years earlier he'd been in the courts with Dundonnell Estate concerning the use of vehicles on a road through his land.

The River Gruinard and An Teallach - picture credit hairypeatcutter

In 1867, the owner of Dundonnell, Hugh Munro-MacKenzie (who styled himself of Ardross and Dundonnell despite his father having sold Ardross, in Easter Ross, in the 1790s: it wasn't uncommon for Highland landlords to continue to call themselves after properties their families had long since disposed of but I'm going to refer to him hereafter simply as Dundonnell) proposed to improve the access to his fishing on the River Gruinard (pronounced "GRIN-yard") and Loch na Sealga (the Gaelic word for hunting pronounced approximately "SHYULL-uh-guh") by upgrading the road (pictured above) along the bank of the river and loch to make it passable by horse-drawn carriages as far as Achneigie in Strath na Sealga. Unfortunately, the road passed through land belonging to Bankes of Letterewe (part of his Fisherfield Deer Forest) and he was opposed to the project. Consequently, Dundonnell applied to the Court of Session for a declarator (court order declaring legal rights) that the road was a public right of way and that consequently he:-

"and all others are entitled in all time coming to free and uninterrupted use, possession, and enjoyment of the said road as a public road for foot-passengers, cattle, sheep, horses, carts, and carriages, or for one or other of these purposes"

Bartholomews Half Inch Map, 1912 via National Libraries of Scotland

The Lord Ordinary (judge of first instance in the Court of Session) ruled against Dundonnell so he appealed to the Inner House of the CofS (Scottish equivalent of the Court of Appeal). It too ruled against him and upheld Bankes' objection to the proposed roadworks. The reason was that, while there was no doubt that, in light of its history as a drove road, the road was a public right of way, there was no evidence it had ever been used as a vehicular right of way. Consequently, Dundonnell was not entitled unilaterally to make it into one in the face of opposition from the owner of the land the road ran over. 

As he didn't appeal to the House of Lords (the equivalent then of today's Supreme Court), Dundonnell's legal battle to build his new road ended there but, as is so often the case with litigation, the outcome for the parties is less interesting than the facts incidentally revealed along the way. Unfortunately, the report of this case doesn't narrate any of the evidence led at the proof (hearing at which witnesses give evidence) about the road's history as a drove road but it does repeat the interlocutor (interim court order) pronounced by the Lord Ordinary, the splendidly named Lord Jerviswoode, with his findings in fact (modern OS spellings in square brackets).

"12th November 1867. Finds in point of fact, that there has existed for forty years and upwards a road or path capable of being used, and which has in fact been used for the said period as a public road for the passage of horses with and without burdens [i.e. loads], and of cattle, sheep and the like, and by foot-passengers, which road or path leads in an easterly direction from the ferry across the river Meikle Gruinard, along the south bank of the said river and Lochnashalag [Loch na Sealga], and follows the course, or nearly the course, of the said river and loch, through the defender's [i.e. Bankes'] lands of Fisherfield and others, to the property and township of Auchnevie [Achneigie] and Lochnet [Loch an Nid]; and thereafter proceeding in two directions, the one in a south-easterly direction by Ballachnacross [Bealach na Croise], Lecky [Leckie], Strathcromble [Srath Chrombuill], and Corryvach [Coire Bhuig], to the public road leading from Lochcarron and Auchnasheen [Achnasheen], and the other in a north- easterly direction by Lochvruin [Loch a' Bhraoin] to the public road through the Deerymoor [Dirrie More] leading from Ullapool to Dingwall." 

The routes and places mentioned are marked on the map below (click to enlarge):-

Ordnance Survey One Inch Map, 1950s, via National Libraries of Scotland

The existence of these drove roads through the mountains of Wester Ross is relatively well known but two smaller nuggets of local history jumped out at me from Lord Jerviswoode's interlocutor. First, the ferry across the Meikle (Big) Gruinard River which was just upstream from where the A832 crosses the river by bridge now (here). We take them for granted nowadays but 200 years ago bridges were few and far between. Fords or ferries across rivers used to be the norm (see here) but it does seem strange that the Meikle Gruinard hadn't yet been bridged as late as 1867. (Was this another source of contention between the neighbouring estates - who should pay for the bridge?) The first edition of the Ordnance Survey 6 inch map surveyed in 1875 shows every river between Braemore and Achnasheen via Gairloch to have been bridged with the exception of the Meikle Gruinard (and, oddly, the more easily fordable Allt Bad an Luig which comes down to the sea at Second Coast on the west side of Gruinard Bay). Even more extraordinary is that it still hadn't been bridged in 1886 when John Dixon wrote his Guide to Gairloch and Loch Maree. Referring to the approach to Gairloch via Braemore, he remarked (here: page 300):-

"The principal difficulty in the way is that there is no bridge over the Meikle Gruinard river, and it cannot always be forded. ... The best method of using this route as an approach to Gairloch is either to walk it, taking the ferry-boat across the Meikle Gruinard river, or else to drive to that river in a conveyance hired from Garve or from the Dundonnell Inn at the head of Loch Broom, and to have another conveyance from the river to Aultbea, Poolewe or Gairloch, as may be desired - the second conveyance to be ordered beforehand from the hotel at one of the last named places. ... When a bridge is erected over the Meikle Gruinard river this route will no doubt become popular. It reveals some grand scenery."   

I don't know when exactly the bridge was finally built but it's marked on the 2nd Edition of the OS 6 inch map (here) which was surveyed in 1904.

The ferry and the ford over the Meilkle Gruinard as shown on the 1st Edition of the Ordnance Survey 6 inch map. The road bridge is now between Creag Pholl ("Pool Rock") and Linne na Cloiche ("Stony Rapids"). Note also the name Inchina which is Gaelic for Ford Meadow.

The second point of interest in the court interlocutor was its reference to the township of Auchnevie (Achneigie) and Lochned (Loch an Nid). It's yet another reminder that these glens, today impossibly remote and frequented only by deer, stalkers and hillwalkers, were once lived in by communities before being emptied by the Clearances. You can see that clearly on the Roy Maps drawn around 1750:-

Cultivation and settlement at Shenavall ("old village") and Larachantivore ("site of the big house") in Strath na Sealga before the Clearances as seen on the Roy Maps via National Libraries of Scotland

I'm not sure if the wording "the township [singular] of Auchnevie and Lochned" implies a sort of conjoined township spread between these two locations. There's no settlement at Loch an Nid marked on the Roy Maps drawn around 1750 as there is at Achneigie - perhaps Loch an Nid was a shieling of Achneigie. Whichever, the word "township" seems to reveal an apparent anachronism in Lord Jerviswoode's interlocutor in the 1867 litigation between Letterewe and Dundonnell because the townships in Strath na Sealga, including Achneigie, had been cleared as long previously as 1803 - perhaps the evidence of some very old men who could remember back to before the Clearances had impressed itself on the judge's mind.

Shenavall Bothy on the site of a cleared township in Strath na Sealga. Behind is one of Scotland's less well known but most splendid mountains, Beinn Dearg Mhor ("Big Red Mountain"). Picture credit tobiascoyote

We know the year of the clearance of Strath na Sealga (1803) because James Hogg, the poet and novelist (True Confessions of a Justified Sinner) known as "the Ettrick Shepherd", referred to it in a letter that year to Sir Walter Scott while on a tour of north west Scotland. Hogg was the guest of Macintyre, the tenant of the 15,000 acre Letterewe sheep farm (he who's son gave evidence in the Dubh Loch case I wrote about here) of which Hogg wrote to Scott as follows:-

"The valley [i.e. Strath na Sealga] is now inhabited only by Mr. Macintyre's shepherds, but there were considerable crops of corn and potatoes left by the tenants who had removed last term. ... This estate is now the property of Mr. Davidson, and though there are some detached parts arable, and possessed by the natives, the greatest extent is now farmed by Mr. Macintyre, at the trifling rent of £200 [about £20k today]; and I am certain, if things continue at present prices, that he may have a clear return of £600 or £700 a year from it [£60-70k] ... What an excellent bargain at such a time!

The truth is, there are several low-country gentlemen getting into excellent bargains by their buying lands in that country [i.e. Wester Ross], of which Mr. Davidson and Mr. Innes [of Lochalsh] are instances; and I cannot help having a desperate ill-will at them on that score. I cannot endure to hear of a Highland chieftain [the MacKenzies of Seaforth and various of their cadet branches] selling his patrimonial property, the cause of which misfortune I always attribute to the goodness of his heart, and the liberality of his sentiments; unwilling to drive off the people who have so long looked to him as their protector, yet whose system of farming cannot furnish them with the means of paying him one-fourth, and in some situations not more than a tenth of the value of his land; ... [Their rents] must be scraped up among the poor, meagre tenants, in twos and threes of silly lambs, hens, and pounds of butter."

You can read the full letter here. It's an interesting observation on the shift from subsistence to commercial farming that the Clearances brought about and not a little ironic that the purpose of Hogg's visit was to look for a sheep farm to rent himself! Anyway, the Mr. Davidson he refers to as Macintyre's landlord of Strath na Sealga and Achneigie was the immensely wealthy Henry Davidson of Tulloch who's father, Duncan, besides inheriting Tulloch Castle and estate at Dingwall, had acquired a lot of land around Gruinard Bay from impecunious MacKenzie lairds in the 1790s from the proceeds of his various business activities. When Henry Davidson died in 1827, he left an estate worth £500,000 (about £50 million in today's money) including as well as his Scottish properties a townhouse in London, a mansion in Middlesex and eight sugar plantations spread across the West Indies. These were worked by African slaves, of course, and one wonders if the Davidsons treated them with the same indifference they treated their Wester Ross tenantry.

Strath na Sealga - the house at Achneigie is just visible on the right bank of the river just above and to the right of the gorse covered haugh. Loch na Sealga and Beinn Dearg Mhor in the distance. Picture credit - k mceachern

By the second half of the 19th century, sheep farming was of less importance and these glens had been given over to sport - the deer stalking and fishing the jealous preservation of which was the source of contention between Bankes of Letterewe and his neighbours, Osgood MacKenzie of Kernsary and Hugh Munro-MacKenzie of Dundonnell. There's only a single house at Achneigie now (it actually looks like two semi-detached cottages and there's the ruins of a building which appears to have a similar footprint 100 yards away). On the Gruinard Estate today, I'm guessing they would have been built as shepherds' cottages and perhaps later occupied by stalkers or watchers or as a modest shooting lodge. I understand that, in the 1930s, there was enough of a community of such estate workers in Strath na Sealga as to justify a side school at Achneigie - I'm still not sure you could call this a "township", though. There's a picture of Achneigie at this time here but today the strath is empty and the house derelict and boarded up.

Achneigie today with Beinn Dearg Mhor behind. Picture credit - hairypeatcutter More of his pictures of Achneigie here and here

 

The manses of Gairloch

The village of Gairloch in Wester Ross presents an interesting selection of manses. (For anyone not aware, manse is the Scottish equivalent of vicarage or rectory - the home of the parish minister, as we call them in Scotland.)

Gairloch Church of Scotland manse

First, there's the Church of Scotland manse pictured above. The CofS is the established church in Scotland, our equivalent of the Church of England, so, as would be expected, it has the oldest and grandest manses. A lot of CofS manses were built around the turn of the 18th/19th centuries although I don't know why that was - perhaps a fund was made available around that time to replace earlier manses. Anyway, the typical CofS manse is an elegant but unpretentious Georgian house, a bit grander than a farmhouse but a little bit less grand than the laird's house reflecting the relative social status of the Minister vis a vis the laird and the farmer. Gairloch Manse is typical - it was built in 1805 although it's classic Georgian appearance was rather spoilt, in my opinion, by an extension added to its front (left in the photo) elevation in 1823. Compare the manse with the laird of Gairloch's house (seen as it appeared in the 19th century before being extended in the early 20th here. Whether or not because he was stung by the fact that the minister lived in a house almost as posh as his, the laird extended his own house in 1904 so that it now looks like this.)  

As well as their manses, CofS ministers were endowed with a glebe, a nearby area of agricultural land which the minister farmed as a supplement to his stipend. (To cut a very involved story short, until the 1920s, CofS ministers were paid a stipend by the heritors (landowners of the parish) as a quid pro quo for the heritors getting to keep the teinds (Scottish equivalent of tithes) of their land.) Hence, manses were typically also provided with a steading (range of farm buildings) as well as the "offices" one would normally expect to find around a 19th century gentleman's home (stable blocks and coach houses and so forth: in Scotland, the word "office" used to signify such outbuildings rather than a place with desks and paperwork as nowadays.) Again, Gairloch CoS manse is typical with a U-plan court of steadings and offices behind it - you can see that on the right in the Google Streetview screengrab below and there's a photo of it from the rear here.

Gairloch manse "offices" - Google Streetview

Glebes were typically about 10 acres (4 hectares in new money) and it's always puzzled me how small they were - not much bigger than a croft - considering that the steadings of a manse were usually exactly the same size as those for a standard farm of 500 or more acres: compare with the steading of nearby Achtercairn Farm here. Anyway, once again Gairloch glebe was entirely typical: I don't know its precise extent but I think it was the area outlined in red on the map below (about 9 acres).

Ordnance Survey 25 inch map published 1904

In common with many, if not most, CofS manses, the one at Gairloch has been sold off by the Church and the minister has been downsized to a modest modern bungalow next door (see it here): it fits with today's more egalitarian society that the minister lives in a house more like that of his (or her) parishioners. Nor does today's minister have a glebe for that was also sold off by the Church in the early/mid 1980s for a social housing development called Glebe Park (go for a virtual walk round here). Wherever you find streets called Glebe something, you know what the land was originally!    

Though not actually in the village of Gairloch, no discussion of manses in Gairloch parish would be complete without mention of the Parliamentary Manse at nearby Poolewe built in 1828 and pictured below:-

Poolewe Parliamentary Manse

I wrote about the Parliamentary Churches and Manses here but, briefly, these were additional churches, with relative manses, built with money provided by Parliament (hence the name) to serve some of the bigger Highland parishes, like Gairloch, which were really too big for just one church. (And that being so, it's always puzzled me why they put the second Gairloch church at Poolewe relatively close to the original one and wouldn't it have been better to have spread them out more by having the new Parliamentary church at Aultbea or Laide?) Anyway, the Parliamentary Manses were all built to one of two standard designs, two storey or single storey. It's often said these designs (see them here) were by Thomas Telford, the engineer most famous for the Menai Suspension Bridge and Edinburgh's Dean Bridge. But although Telford was the surveyor to the Commission which supervised their construction, the Parliamentary Manses and Churches were designed by William Thomson. The manse at Poolewe was originally a single storey one which subesequently had a second storey added in the mid 19th century. There's a good example of a Parliamentary manse still in its original single storey condition at Shieldaig (Torridon) - see it here. They didn't have glebes and Poolewe manse is also now a private house.

FC Manse - Google Streetview

Back in the village of Gairloch, the next manse in point of time is the Free Church manse pictured above. Once again, Gairloch's FC manse is absolutely typical of the genre, looking far more like a plain Victorian farmhouse. (I've always wondered if that reflected a subconscious feeling that Free Church ministers were considered just a notch or two down the social scale and closer to a farmer than an Established Church (CoS) minister!) As it's not a listed building like the CoS manse, I don't know exactly when the FC manse was built - obviously it has to be post-1843 when the Free Church came into existence and I'd guess the 1850s. I don't think FC manses routinely had glebes like CofS ones but the Gairloch FC glebe might have been the field (only 3.5 acres) to the left (north) of and behind the manse which has now had houses built on it (here). And I don't know whether the manse still houses the FC minister either or whether it's been sold too.

FP Manse

Lastly in the chronology of Gairloch manses is the Free Presbyterian manse pictured above. Again, I don't know its date except that it must post-date the formation of the FP Church in 1893 (by secession from the Free Church which they thought was going soft) and I note that it's not marked on the 2nd Edition of the Ordnance Survey 25 inch map which was surveyed in 1902. I'd guess it was built around 1910. Nor do I know if it still houses the FP minister.

None of these four houses I've described seem particularly remarkable today when they pretty much blend into the surrounding "village-scape". But it would have been different when they were built and they would have towered over the blackhouses of the surrounding crofters, particularly in the case of the two older manses, the CofS and Parliamentary ones, which were built at a time when you could have counted the number of slated buildings between Kerrysdale and Poolewe on the fingers of both hands (Kerrysdale, Flowerdale & Charleston Houses, the Old and Poolewe Inns and the Old Police House - others?) It's also worth noting that these two older manses are much bigger than their respective churches! (See them here and here.)

Finally, Gairloch is also endowed with the purpose built home of another professional who ministered to the needs of the locals: a doctor's house, pictured below.

Doctor's house - Google Streetview

The surgery (where I remember once being diagnosed with a mild dose of shingles!) was also in the house. From its architectural style, I'd guess it was built in the 1920s or 30s when, along with the manses, it would still have been one of the biggest houses in the neighbourhood compared with the surrounding crofters' cottages. What's interesting about it (to me!) is that there's an almost identical doctor's house at Miavaig in Lewis (see it here) and I'm wondering if these two (and others?) were built, to uniform designs as with the Parliamentary Manses, as part of some sort of programme to accommodate doctors in remote rural areas - perhaps as part of the Highlands & Islands Medical Service set up in 1913 as a sort forerunner to the NHS? The doctor's house at Gairloch no longer functions as such but the Miavaig one does. If anyone knows of any other similar doctor's houses - or can add to or correct - any of the other information presented here, please do leave a comment.

Gairloch Church of Scotland manse

Dubh Loch: when is a loch not a loch?

I've mentioned this before but the law reports can be a great source of local history that might otherwise be lost. Another case in point is MacKenzie v Bankes in 1877 which concerned fishing rights in a loch in Wester Ross.

360 degree view by Dave Lawson here

Despite being set amongst the most dramatic scenery, Dubh Loch - the nearest in the photo above - is not well known. That's probably because it's a ten mile walk from the nearest road: in the starchy Victorian language of one of the judges in the case I'm going to talk about, it lies east of Loch Maree "in a very wild part of the hills, far from any gentleman's house". Dubh Loch is separated from its much larger neighbour to the north west, Fionn Loch, by a shallow bar or submerged ithsmus about 100 yards wide and covered with knee deep water between two spits of land. This feature is called A' Phait which is the Gaelic word for ford or stepping stones (thanks to my Gaelic consultant there - you know who you are) and it's crossed by a narrow stone causeway.

A' Phait, with Fionn Loch to the west (left), as shown on the 1875 Ordnance Survey 6 inch map. You can see more of this map on the National Libraries of Scotland website. Use the "Change transparency of overlay" slider on the left to reveal high resolution geo-referenced aerial imagery under the map. 

The causeway at A'Phait viewed from the south with Fionn Loch to the left and Dubh Loch to the right - picture credit Stuart S via Tripadvisor

Incidentally, Dubh (pronounced "Doo") Loch means literally Black Loch and Fionn (pronounced "F-yawn") Loch means literally White Loch. However, the names are more figurative: Dubh Loch is black in the sense of being more often in the shade due to its surrounding mountains whereas Fionn Loch is white in the sense of being more often in the sunlight due to its more open aspect.

Anyway, before we get to the court case which embroiled Dubh Loch in the 1870s, we need to have a quick legal lecture: here comes the science bit - concentrate! as Jen A used to say in the shampoo ads. In Scottish law, if a loch (and I'm talking about freshwater lochs here, different rules apply to sea lochs) is entirely surrounded by a single property, then the owner of that property has the exclusive right to fish in it. But if a loch is bounded by two (or more) properties, then both (or all) the proprietors are allowed to fish in it. Moreover, each is allowed to fish in all parts of the loch - they're not confined to fishing just the part of the loch opposite their particular property. Applying that rule to Fionn and Dubh Lochs in the 1870s, look at the map below (click to enlarge):-

Both lochs were entirely surrounded by Letterewe Estate belonging to Meyrick Bankes (of a rich Lancashire family you can read about here) except between points A and B which adjoined Kernsary Estate belonging to Osgood MacKenzie (he who is most famous for having founded Inverewe Gardens). 

Osgood and his guests and sporting tenants of Kernsary had been in use to fish over the whole of Fionn and Dubh Lochs for many years until October 1876 when Bankes put a stop to Kernsary fishing Dubh Loch, he being concerned, apparently, that fishers on the loch might disturb deer on his surrounding Letterewe Estate. Osgood responded to this by raising court proceedings to have it declared that he had a legal right, jointly with Letterewe, to fish in Dubh Loch. To succeed in this, Osgood required the court to find that Fionn and Dubh were all one loch. Because if it found that Dubh was a separate loch from Fionn, then, because no part of Kernsary adjoined Dubh, it would have no right to fish it and Bankes would be quite within his rights to prevent Kernsary from doing so.

Osgood MacKenzie. I couldn't find a picture of Meyrick Bankes

After a lengthy proof (hearing at which the evidence of witnesses is heard), a judge of the Court of Session in Edinburgh ruled in favour of Osgood MacKenzie by deciding that Fionn and Dubh were legally all one loch. He seems to have been influenced by scepticism of the evidence of Meyrick Bankes' scientific witness, Mr Buchanan, that A'Phait was really a river, albeit a short one, between the Dubh and Fionn and thus they were in no different situation from two lochs linked by a longer river. But observing that this so-called river was almost as wide as it was long, the judge dismissed this as "really a thing of the imagination".

Meyrick Bankes appealed to the Inner House of the Court of Session (Scottish equivalent of the Court of Appeal) where the matter was reconsidered by three senior judges headed by the Lord Justice Clerk. Taking a less scientific and more common sense approach, they decided that Fionn and Dubh were two separate lochs. Two of the judges were influenced by the simple fact of them having different names: in the words of the Lord Justice Clerk "these two sheets of water are as separate in their nature as they are in their names". The third judge was a bit doubtful about that - he observed that bits of the Mediterranean having different different names (Adriatic, Aegean etc.) didn't make it any less one sea - but he didn't feel strongly enough about it formally to dissent from his brethren.

Having lost the second set, so to speak, Osgood appealed to what was then the highest court in the land, the House of Lords (nowadays the Supreme Court). Though not without misgivings on the part of two of them, four law lords ruled that Dubh and Fionn were separate lochs. They were influenced by the consideration that what gives rise to the rule that a proprietor adjoining a loch is entitled to fish over all of it and not just the part opposite his property - that it's not easy in practice to identify where such imaginary dividing lines lie when you're out in a boat - simply didn't apply to Fionn and Dubh Lochs. It was perfectly obvious where the dividing line between them lay at A'Phait, even before the causeway had been built, where the evidence of the witnesses was that the water was not deep enough for a boat with a fisherman and a ghillie to pass over it.

Thus did Osgood MacKenzie ultimately lose his marathon legal battle to get to fish on Dubh Loch. Legal fees must have been cheaper in these days because for the cost of a court case pursued all the way to the Supreme Court today, you could just about buy Letterewe Estate! Anyway, the legal outcome is less interesting than some of the nuggets of local history revealed by the evidence of the witnesses led in the case. Unfortunately, not all of the evidence is transcribed in the law report, only so much as the judges thought particularly relevant (which is great for lawyers but rubbish for historians!), but here's some of it. First, John MacKenzie, one of Osgood MacKenzie's witnesses, who built the causeway in 1828:-

"I put the stones there by orders of Duncan MacRae, tenant of Inveran, which was part of Kernsary. MacRae was also tenant of Carnmore [the land on the north east side of Fionn and Dubh Lochs] and Strathnashellag [a glen parallel with the lochs to the north east], on the north side of the loch. He told me to make a causeway or stepping-stones across the Phait. I got £5 for doing so. I used no lime or clay in making the causeway. I made it just of loose stones, not dressed in any way. Macrae ordered the causeway to be made to get sheep across the Phait from his one farm to his other farm. I cannot say very well what was the height of the causeway above the ground; I believe it was between 2 and 3 feet. The breadth, I believe, was between 6 and 7 feet."

Looking down on the east end of Fionn Loch and Dubh Loch from the top of Beinn Airigh Charr. Picture credit Tim Allott

Also of interest was the evidence of William MacIntyre, born in 1796:-

My father was managing partner in the firm of Messrs Birtwhistle, who had the farm of Letterewe and some other farms in that neighbourhood. He was so at the time I was born, and continued to be so until his death in 1827. I was born at Letterewe. I lived there till I was twenty years of age, when I went into the navy as a midshipman. I remained in the navy till 1822. I then returned to Letterewe, where I spent two years. I next went to Liverpool, where I was for thirty-three years. I came back to Poolewe in 1860, and have been living there ever since. The first time I visited the Fionn Loch was in 1813. There were some smugglers then on an island in the loch, and they had a boat and took me across with them. I first saw the Phait in 1816. There was no artificial causeway across it in these days, so far as I observed. A medical student was along with me, and when we came to the Phait he carried me across the water. ... My father had a coble [flat bottomed boat] at the Phait at one time. I recollect that from the circumstance that one day a cattle-dealer named Peter Morrison was crossing the Phait in the boat. I don’t know how it happened, but the boat drifted out with him, and he got so much alarmed that he was shouting out to us how his property was to be disposed of. ... My father at one time kept a shepherd who kept a pair of stilts to go through the water."

A final interesting snippet came from Murdoch MacLean, born in 1788:-

"I have seen a boat on the Fionn Loch a good bit from the Phait. The man who lived in Kernsary owned it. It was kept to bring wood from the islands."  

This evidence paints a fascinating picture of this remote corner of Wester Ross in the first half of the 19th century: vast sheep farms covering the whole hinterland between Loch Maree and An Teallach, some tenanted by locals, we may assume from a name like MacRae, but others tenanted by Englishmen, we may equally assume from a name like Birtwistle, in partnership with Scots. Note the reference to the witness MacIntyre's father having been the "managing partner" at Letterewe Farm - does this infer that Birtwistle was a sleeping partner, an investor in the booming wool and mutton business? Had he ever even been to Wester Ross? A cattle dealer venturing out of his comfort zone and giving himself a big fright by getting quite literally out of his depth in these wild places. Social mobility in the form of MacIntyre joining the Navy then living in Liverpool for 30 years before retiring to Poolewe. Friendly smugglers living on islands and shepherds on stilts! And all this in a landscape so barren that the only wood to be had is also on an island in Fionn Loch, the only place where the tree saplings are safe from being eaten by deer and sheep. (There's still a tree covered island in Fionn - picture here).

National Libraries of Scotland - click the link and use the "Change transparency" slider on the left to reveal the underlying aerial imagery

I've heard it said there were no Clearances in Wester Ross. But the Roy Map pictured above, drawn 1747-55, shows settlement and cultivation in Strath na Sealga and these people would have to have left, probably at the end of the 18th century, to make way for the sheep farmers. How much of a difference is there really between a "Clearance" in the sense of people being forced out by sheriff officers and having their homes burnt behind them as in Sutherland and those who simply saw the writing on the wall that said they couldn't afford the sorts of rents being offered for their farms by people bankrolled by the Birtwistles of this world and quietly, and without fuss, moved away from the land their ancestors might have occupied for generations?