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