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 2nd 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)
Yesterday evening (Tuesday 23rd November 2021) saw the latest in a series of talks, held at Stratherrick hall and hosted by the South Loch Ness Heritage group. The evening’s speaker was Roland Spencer-Jones from the North of Scotland Archaeological society (NoSas) and the subject was Stories from the Lovat estate maps, maps, mapmakers and mapmaking.It was heartening, despite the inclement weather and necessary covid measures to see a good turnout. It was especially pleasing to see some of the younger members of the community in attendance. Hopefully they found the talk of interest.Roland’s talk was delivered with enthusiasm and not a little humour. He described his discovery in the Lovat estate office of some 395 maps dating between 1757 and 1890, how he catalogued them and with assistance from the National Library of Scotland and some stalwart volunteers, the maps were digitised and made available on-line to everyone.With a particular focus on Stratherrick, Roland spoke about the surveyors who made the maps and the challenges they faced. He described the reasons why maps were, prior to the formation of the Ordnance survey produced and how mapmaking evolved over this period from what were little more than pictures with only a passing resemblance to the country it described to the kind of cartographical images with which we are familiar today.The final part of the talk became a little more hands on. Roland produced a selection of items which would have been used by the surveyors who produced the maps. The use of chains, for calculating distance and cross poles for ensuring straight lines and accurate 90 degree angles were demonstrated with assistance from audience members.Roland closed his talk with a cri de Coeur. One map was found missing from the Lovat estate archive, that map is the 1757 map of Stratherrick by Peter May. Roland asked if anyone came across it, stored in an attic of under their bed could they let him know as it was a national treasure.Having finished speaking Roland was thanked by Bob Main, Chairman of the South Loch Ness Heritage group for a most entertaining evening.
Normans presentation began with a name on a grave stone in Tomnahurich cemetery with died B.C. carved on it, which lead us to an expedition to the Yukon by four Invernesians and a Free Church minister. The intention of the Invernesian was to go to the gold mines in the Klondike to find their fortune in gold. Whilst the Minister intended to raise money to furnish the newly built Queen St Church by preaching to the people there and to give lectures on his return. The talk detailed the difficulty’s they had in reaching the goldfields in Dawson City with sinking of their boat on rapids on the Yukon river, resulting in the loss of one of their party. There were no fortunes made by the remaining Invernesians at the Klondyke. The minister the Rev AC Macdonald was the first to return sending his account of the expedition on route to the Inverness Courier in late August 1898 and gave a lecture on 28 October in the Music hall Inverness. A short history of the Rev AC Macdonald was given by Norman. Born in Garthbeg, Stratherrick went to Canada to get his Divinity degree, returned to Inverness to preach, and frequently travelled abroad, as far as India and Australia on various missions. In 1901 he retired from the active ministry of the congregation of the Queen St and engaged in spite of long-continued ill-health, farming. Where he died at Leek, Fort Augustus in 1910. Two of his G-Grand nephews were in the audience for the talk. An excellent informative evening for the first talk since the start of the Covid pandemic.
On Tuesday 15th October 2019 at Stratherrick Hall we had a very interesting talk, excellently illustrated, by local author Jim Miller. Jim’s talk “The Great North Road” is based from his book “The Finest Road in the World: The Story of Travel and Transport in the Scottish Highlands”.
Jim led us on a journey from Perth to Thurso taking in the evolution of road transport, through the last three hundred years. How from drove roads taken by cattle to the markets in the south, the routes of a lot of them became the highways of today.
Of how General Wade and Major Caulfeild in the seventeen hundreds built the military roads for fast movement to troops to quell any uprising by unruly highlanders. The first road being from Fort George to Fort William through our district via Dramashie ,Torness back of Errogie, Gorthleck , Whitebridge over the Suidh to Fort Augustus . Jim mention Tolls or Turnpikes roads (charges for using roads) there were two toll stations in our area one at Scaniport and one at Drummond (Whitebridge).
Jim related anecdote’s of early travellers on horseback and the difficulties they faced including river crossings and accommodation, also the coming of the stagecoaches on the newly constructed roads in the early eighteen hundreds from Edinburgh to Inverness.
The coming of the railways saw the demise of the stagecoach, but they were still used on minor routes till the early part nineteen hundreds till the car or motorised bus replaced them.
Jim’s talk was preceded by a brief AGM of the Heritage Group.
Friday 14th and Saturday 15th June 2019 at Stratherrick Hall
Following the resounding success of our ‘Things we used to use’ two-day exhibition last summer, we decided to stage something similar this year. To mark the 100th birthday of the Forestry Commission, the Trees and Forests of South Loch Ness exhibition was mounted in (and outside) Stratherrick Hall, masterminded by Bob Main and Mags Fraser, with an informative and hugely entertaining talk by Bryce Reynard on the Friday evening. As last year, the local primary school pupils were our first guests on the Friday, and found the exhibits fascinating, asking lots of questions which showed their enthusiasm and interest.
Inside the hall were a wide variety of wall displays, maps, ‘browsing tables’ of books and magazines, forestry tools from ancient to modern, including power saws, trees themselves from seedlings of different species to full-grown cross-sections showing annual growth rings. Particularly impressive was Mags’ and Janet’s ‘timeline’ showing the history of forestry in South Loch Ness and its effects on the life and landscape of our area. Outside, on the hall wall, were some of the Forestry Commission’s signs (including fire warnings) that have been so familiar over the years, while in the car park were old Ferguson and Fordson tractors, a vintage McConnel circular saw and a modern mobile saw mill producing boards from logs – these were all demonstrated, attracting much interest. We had some members of the public looking in after the Friday school visits, but many more enjoyed the exhibition on Saturday, including a group of local retired foresters.
A good turnout of about forty heard Bryce’s talk on Friday evening. After a short but fascinating black-and-white film about Scottish forestry in the early 50s, Bryce launched into a wonderfully colourful life history, with anecdotes from his forestry career which took him to virtually every corner of Scotland. As his life history advanced, his assistant Fred Millwood modelled the various Commission uniform jackets used over the decades, from tweed with red collars with crowns on them, right up to modern fleeces. Bryce found a growing interest in hillwalking fitted in ideally with his job, and another profitable sideline was running bed-and-breakfast with his wife in their several forestry homes. Bryce and Fred rounded off a great evening with a tuneful and amusing duet, and one was left with a feeling that here were two men who had found the ideal life career!
In conclusion, many thanks are due to Bob (himself a civil engineer with the Forestry Commission) and to Mags (who got a little presentation for all her hours of meticulous preparation) and to the numerous people who lent material and artefacts for the display, and also several from outwith the Heritage Group who gave their time over the two days to help man (and woman!) the event. In all, another huge success for the Group.
On Tuesday 23rd April at Stratherrick Hall we had a wonderful talk, excellently illustrated, by Dr Iain Robertson of the UHI Centre for History at Dornoch. Iain’s style was clear and dynamic, befitting a professional lecturer on history, and it was pleasing to see a good turnout to hear him.
Iain explained the background to land problems; how the traditional clan idea that the land you lived and farmed on was ‘yours’ was slowly eroded as clan chiefs came to be seen as ‘owners’ who could sell their land, and it often became sheep runs and deer forests in the 18th and 19th centuries, causing the notorious ‘clearances’. These resulted in many smallholders, or crofters, getting squeezed on to congested, marginal land where they were tenants. Starvation came with frequent potato harvest failures, and desperation led to ‘land raids’ as the 19th century moved towards its end. Acts, such as the 1911 Crofters’ Act, tried to mitigate the crofters’ plight, but with very limited success.
The Great War changed this climate radically. The Highlands produced a bigger proportion of the fighting force than other UK areas, and these men were promised ‘a land fit for heroes’. Further ‘land raids’ took place, which although they were illegal, were viewed with increasing sympathy due to the war sacrifices made by the ‘raiders’. After the war, further Acts of Parliament strengthened campaigners’ hands, and most people wanting land ultimately succeeded in their quest. Housing improvements were made too. While the greatest pressures for granting land were in the Western Isles and Skye, land raids were recorded in the Kingussie area, and at Dell farm in Stratherrick.
Coming up to date, these campaigns for land can be seen as the forerunners of successful, modern ‘community buy-outs’ as seen in Assynt, Eigg, North Harris and Gigha.
Iain’s talk stimulated a considerable number of questions from his audience, which he ably answered, and thoroughly deserved the hearty vote of thanks accorded to him.
WADE BRIDGE OF WHITEBRIDGE TRUST AGM
Before Iain Robertson’s presentation, John Townshend, chair of the Wade Bridge Trust, gave a brief report, indicating that no significant events had occurred since the last AGM. The committee remained the same. Information and photos of the Trust’s successful work in stabilising the bridge were on display.
Apologies for the lateness of this report. It was back on 6th November 2018 that Maureen gave us her talk on this fascinating topic. She described the lives and activism of Inverness women at the time of the Great War, not only Suffragettes, who engaged in ‘civil disobedience’ and hunger strikes, but also Suffragists, who lobbied Parliament somewhat less stridently and won over many men to the justice of their cause – voting rights for women. The war proved to be a great opportunity for women to demonstrate their capabilities, particularly in medicine and nursing (Dr. Elsie Inglis still being a famous name a century later), and partial voting rights for women were agreed by Parliament as soon as the war ended. It was, however, to be another decade before full women’s suffrage and equality with men were granted. Maureen showed us, illustrated by well-chosen photographs and press cuttings, that this period was indeed the one that kicked off the struggle for gender equality which continues to this day, and that the women of Inverness and area played a significant and valuable part.
Maureen’s talk was preceded by a brief AGM of the Heritage Group.
Apologies for the lateness of this post! This exhibition, titled ‘Things we used to use’ was staged in Stratherrick Hall on Friday 1st and Saturday 2nd June 2018. Quite literally hundreds of utensils, tools and artefacts from the past were on show, filling the hall, but leaving plenty room to circulate and chat as well. All the exhibits were labelled, with photographs to show many of them in use, and committee members and friends of the Heritage Group were on hand to explain things and help everyone to wallow in nostalgia.
On the Friday, we had visits from those too young to experience nostalgia – the pupils of Foyers, Aldourie and Stratherrick Primary Schools. they particularly enjoyed demonstrations of musical instruments, a wind-up gramophone, a stirrup-pump (great chance to get wet!) dairy utensils and laundry equipment. Some of these items were outside, joining an old Ferguson tractor.
In the hall were exhibits relating to traditional activities of the area – such as farming, forestry and gamekeeping; cobblers’ and blacksmiths’ tools were on show too. Home and school were also well represented, with dozens of once-familiar (and quite a few still familiar) domestic items, plus school books, part of a desk (with inkwell) and the inevitable tawse! A popular feature was the mystery table, displaying twenty strange-looking objects! Most older visitors identified some of them, but only the most knowledgeable recognised the lot!
Joining our school visitors on Friday morning, and then in the afternoon and evening too, as well as on Saturday, was a steady stream of members of the public, some old friends and neighbours, but many visitors to the area too. Reactions were invariably most enthusiastic, and it is clear that, after a breather of a year or two, there will be demand for another similar event. We now have lists of the fascinating exhibits that many locals have in their homes, sheds and barns!
It’s always risky naming people who helped, either by contributing items or in storing, displaying or demonstrating them, because someone always gets left out. Suffice to say that this was a wonderful team effort, preparations for which started a couple of months before the exhibition itself. You all know who you are, so give yourselves a well-deserved pat on the back!