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