SOUTH LOCH NESS HERITAGE GROUP

Summer Event 2024

BONA FIDE TRAVELLER WALK

Whitebridge to Foyers via Dell 3 miles

Saturday 24^th August at 9.30 am

Gathering at Fechlin room in Wildside, Whitebridge

A talk will be given there on all the places, history, features, and stories of the sites of interest we will encounter on the walk down to Foyers. This is so that those physically unable to do the walk, may be able to attend part of the event.

Parking is available at Wildside and for those wishing to walk only to Foyer, lifts will be arranged back.  If you intend going please contact Alister 01463 715713   for further information and  to register the number of people in your group     

Admission is free, but a collection will be taken

On Thursday 18^th April 2024 at Stratherrick Hall the South Loch Ness Heritage group held its spring talk “History of Inverness Hospitals” the speaker being Steve Leslie . Before an enthralled audience of around forty people, Steve a Consultant Cardiologist at Raigmore Hospital and co-author along with his father Jim, of the book The Hospitals of Inverness, took us on a virtual road trip across the highlands describing medical facilities from the eighteen fifties till the present day. Steve told us of Fever Hospitals, Cottage Hospitals, Maternity hospitals, Military Hospitals, Asylums and Sanatoriums , illustrated with photos of some of them and highlighted important design features of attributed to different types of hospitals. Steve went on to give a brief history of the medical facilities in our area, with the coming of the British Aluminium Company which provided funding in the late eighteen nineties to bring a doctor to Foyers.

Steve recounted the different types of facilities for medical assistance that existed in Inverness and mentioned the Inverness city walking audio tour of them. The tour is available at www.geotourist.com and search for ‘inverness’

There is a website, History of Highland Hospitals https://www.historyofhighlandhospitals.com/index.asp which Steve and Jim Leslie provide a comprehensive medical history of the area , that also gives a link to the Inverness walking tour (Hospitals on Geotourist )

For our Spring talk we have the History of Inverness Hospitals by Stephen Leslie on the 18th April at Stratherrick Hall at 7:30 pm . Stephen a Consultant Cardiologist at Raigmore Hospital is co-author of the book The Hospitals of Inverness, will talk on medical facilities in Inverness and our locality from last Century and before.

On Tuesday 5th December 2023 at Stratherrick hall the South Loch Ness Heritage group held its AGM followed by a talk by group stalwart Alister Chisholm.

The presentation consisted of two audio recording of Stratherrick residents past to which Alister had added a superb selection of photographs relevant to the topics mentioned.

The first recording was of Maisie MacMillan (1924-2011) who was raised at 2 County cottages, Gorthleck, spent her professional career away and then returned on retirement. Maisie spoke on numerous subjects on growing up in the strath, amongst these schooling, employment and characters were prominent.

The second recording was of David Rose (1891-1968) David lived most of his life in the Strath mainly following his father as a gamekeeper at Farraline estate. David was as Gaelic speaker and it was interesting to hear his pronunciation of local place names, and when speaking English David spoke in the authentic Stratherrick accent.

David spoke on many interesting subjects amongst there life in the strath in the early 1900’s, illicit stills, whisky smuggling and excise men and the numerous ‘characters’ that inhabited the Strath.

Despite the icy conditions there was a reasonable turnout and Alisters efforts were much appreciated by all present.

Further talks will be held in the New Year, watch social media and local notice boards for details.

Today (Sat 30 Sept 23) saw our much anticipated Errogie to Inverfarigaig walk via the Farigaig pass. Hosted by Alex Sutherland the walk attracted about 35 participants of all ages. Alex enthralled us with many stories highlights of which were those of a bloodless battle, the skeleton of a highlander within a growing tree and a murder whilst he also showed us the location of croft houses long collapsed and a gate to the world of the Faeries. Alex was not our only commentator, John Townsend spoke about General Wades roads, Alister Chisholm showed us one of the locations where our outside pulpit was used for open air services. He also described in some detail the life and death of James Bryce to whom a memorial stands in the pass.

Bob Main spoke on a number of subjects especially of note was his description of the old Bobbin mill whilst Morag gave us an insight into the pronunciation and meaning of the Gaelic names we met with and told us the story of Deidre of the sorrows and Dun Deardil.

The SLNHG would like to thank all those who assisted and gave freely of their time to make the walk a success.

The latest South Loch Ness Heritage groups series of local interest talks was held on Thursday the 30^th March 2023 at Stratherrick Hall. Unusually there were two showings, an afternoon matinee at 1.30pm and an evening showing at 7.30pm, and fortunate it was as the talk attracted unprecedented numbers to attend. The afternoon showing attracted 47attendees some of whom came from outwith the Strath and included eleven Primary 7 pupils from Farr School accompanied by their teacher Donna Grant. Whilst the evening event attracted 49 some travelling from as far afield as Wick.

What attracted so much attention you may ask! Well the answer would be for the first time since 2005 Alister Chisholm (jnr) was presenting a series of audio interviews that his father Alister Chisholm (snr) gave back in the 1980’s. Alister introduced the recording of his father’s memoirs in the Strath going back to the years after the two World Wars. Accompanied by many photographs on screen in keeping with the narrative we saw how costume had changed, the type of work people did then, what transport was like, when power came to homes, what events/ sports took place, how dominant the 12th August was for the start of shooting parties to the Estate Lodges and tracing the history of the churches and schools in the area, etc.   Appropriate dates were included.

    It was indeed a very fascinating and interesting Talk which captured the attention of everyone young and old. It certainly gave us much to compare and think about.

Thanks are due to Ernie Randall for once again setting up and controlling the sound element of the talk. Thanks are also due to the ladies of the Soup to go group for arranging teas, coffees and a wonderful selection of biscuits.

A total of £228 was received in donations from those attending both talks for which the SLNHG offers their thanks.

Future talks are planned and will be advertised on both the SLNHG and local Face book sites, on roadside boards and on local notice boards.

M Fraser, R Morley.

The South Loch Ness Heritage Groups latest talk was held at Wildside on Tuesday 28th October. The talk followed on from the groups summer visit to the restored medieval Kirk of KirkMichael which is located on the Black isle.

Dr Jim MacKay took the group on a journey starting at the realisation that the Kirk was in danger of total collapse to, 15 years later its full restoration. Dr Mackay described how funding was found, how the project was almost abandoned when the roof fell in one snowy night, and how with the perseverance and common sense of numerous tradesmen and volunteers the Kirk and surrounding Kirkyard were restored to what can be seen now.

The second part of the talk illustrated the numerous beautiful and historically significant medieval engraved stones found at KirkMichael and nearby Cullicudden kirk. The methods used to preserve the stones was described as was the methods used for reading inscriptions illegible to the naked eye.

At the talks culmination SLNHG chair, Bob Main thanked Dr MacKay on behalf of the group for an interesting, engaging at at times humorous talk.

For our first summer outing since 2015, the South Loch Ness Heritage Group had a field trip on the 2^nd July 2022 to the refurbished Medieval Kirkmichael in the Black Isle. The Kirkmichael Trust under the chairmanship of Dr Jim Mackay have repaired the ancient and derelict buildings at Kirkmichael and created a unique display of local medieval ornamental crosses within the refurbished buildings. Jim met the group and explained the layout of the old and new parts of the adjoining graveyard, why the older part is raised a couple of feet in height above new, due to the density of interments over the last six hundred years in that part. Also explained and showed example of pre reformation flat grave stones, table stones and the upright gravestones. One of Jim’s colleagues Davine showed us the only Gaelic gravestone in the cemetery even though that was the language spoken in the district, all of the older gravestones were engraved with old Scots. Jim then took us inside the refurbished Chancel and Nave of the church and explained the reason for the symbols on the medieval crosses there, also regaling us with stories about some of the families within the area that were interred in the churchyard .    The subject of  photogrammetry was explained  to us which is taking about 50 photographs of a badly eroded gravestone in various angles and in different lights and by a computer programme a more clear indication of what is carved  on the stone  can be obtained .   The trust have done a marvellous job at the site and are still actively repairing stones etc on site each Saturday. Our group were fascinated by the visit and of the restoration work that has been done, and still ongoing. Locally in our district we have Boleskine cemetery which the earliest stone recorded to date is 1729, which within its boundary has a Mort House, the only one in the North of Scotland, the nearest other ones are in Aberdeenshire .  On seeing what has been done at Kirkmichael surely there is scope for a similar project here.

During both World Wars, extra timber was urgently needed and thousands of lumberjacks were recruited by the UK from Newfoundland (Newfies) to help cut and process trees, mostly in Scotland

Unlike the Canadian Timber Corps the Newfoundlanders were not military men (Newfoundland was not part of the Canadian Federation till 1949) and volunteered to come to Britain.  Generally the Canadians set up the camps and sawmills and moved on leaving them to be operated by the Newfoundlanders. The sawmills were set up all over the country where there was available timber, mainly in Scotland.

Remnants of the mill at Whitebridge, just north of the Wildside Centre was examined and photographed by Alasdair and featured in the presentation, where 35 people came to hear Alasdair’s fascinating talk. He included slides of the crowded boats that crossed the Atlantic, foresters in action, maps of camps and a historic newsreel. Many Newfies stayed and married local lassies.

Alasdair brought his collection of old axes (including double-bladed) and tools, and our own Alister Chisholm displayed his grandfather’s Board of Trade purchase order dating from 1946 for equipment from the Whitebridge sawmill. On display was the large circular saw blade and rollers from the bench.

A Newfoundland man living in Invergarry came to the talk and brought his father who had arrived in Scotland the previous day to visit his family. They added greatly to the discussions afterwards. It was good to hear the noisy hubbub of a live interactive meeting.

£210 in donations were made for the Disasters Emergency Committee (Ukraine)