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Loch Ness heritage group letters
SOUTH LOCH NESS HERITAGE GROUP
Summer Event 2024
BONA FIDE TRAVELLER WALK
Whitebridge to Foyers via Dell 3 miles
Saturday 24th 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
Highland Gathering 2024 will be held at Corriegarth Estate, Gorthleck on Saturday 20 July,12 noon to 4pm , Directions to the gathering will be signposted locally, and the turn off to Corriegarth from the B862 is at the Drumtemple Crossroads .
The South Loch Ness Heritage Group will have a stand at the Highland Gathering, next to the vintage tractors display . There will be display boards featuring local scenes ect along with display books on local topics.
There are two competitions
KNOW YOUR STRATH – Quiz for under 12’s, and 10 MYSTERY OBJECTS – for under 100years
Also local book publications will be available to purchase on the day. One of our committee members Bob Main, is organising the display of vintage tractors and agricultural machinery alongside our Stand/Tent
MYSTERY QUIZ : ANSWERS & WINNER.
1. Bee smoker. 2. Making lead shot. 3. Knife with different -sized blades for bleeding a sick animal. 4. Filling water to rear tyres of a tractor. 5. Punching the septum for a bull’s nose ring. 6. Old saw set. 7. Another type of saw set. 8. For stoning cherries / extracting juice. 9.A cannula – probe for e.g. a bloated cow. 10. Nut/ bolt splitter.
The winner of the £10 book token was Corran Gardiner from South Laggan, Invergarry.
A recent online lecture in April 2024 given by a John Poulter ( Roman Roads Research Association) was on Military Roads of Scotland, dealing with the General Wade roads. Quite a large potion of the talk was given over to the General Wade roads from Inverness to Fort Augustus through Dores and Stratherrick . On the night of the talk there were problems of people getting access to the Lecture on line, so John asked the Heritage Group to inform its members that the talk is now on you tube the link is https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqRwv1RsLjSc4oBAc-b7YF6CUl6Ma5H_k
On Thursday 18th 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.
For a belated summer event the Heritage Group on Saturday 30th September will have “A WALK IN THE PASS/T “.
Starting at Errogie Corner at 10am we will walk down the Pass of Inverfarigaig arriving at the shores of Loch Ness at approx 1pm.
This 4.5km guided walk will look at the Geology, History, Archaeology/Past Industry, Mythology and General Anecdotes about the area.
This event coincides and will feature as part of the Highland Archaeology Festival 2023. If you intend going please contact Bob Main on 01456486317 for further information and to book a place on walk. This is to enable us to assess numbers attending and to arrange logistics.
Whilst doing the memorial recording at Boleskine graveyard the Heritage Group members noted the further decay in the state of the roof on the Mort house building within the graveyard.
A tree had come down in a storm in 2013 and broke and dislodged slates on the roof, this had never been repaired by the Highland Council who own the building.
The Heritage Group had approached the Stratherrick and Foyers Community Trust in 2019 to see if a grant could be obtained to repair the roof, but due to their policies at the time was outwith their remit. In 2023, we again contact the Trust with a view to submitting a request for a grant to repair the roof and were advised to submit an application via them to the Stronelairg Windfarm Fund.
However as the intervening the weather and other factors had taken its toll on the building resulting in the mort house requiring a new roof which will entailed applying for Listed Building consent.
We submitted an application to Stronelairg Windfarm Fund for a grant to renew the roof, repair damaged stonework and to repoint all the building’s wall’s.
We are delighted to announce that we were successfully with our application and work is currently ongoing to sort the stonework and repoint the building. Once Listed Building consent is granted, work will then commence on renewing the roof.
The latest South Loch Ness Heritage groups series of local interest talks was held on Thursday the 30th 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.