by Meryl Marshall (NOSAS)
NOSAS regularly make field visits to the Tarbat Ness area. When browsing through my archives recently I came across a review for a book “Tain, Tarbat Ness and the Duke 1833” by Hamish Mackenzie, which I had written for the Clan Mackenzie Magazine in October 2012. The review includes some lovely descriptions of the people and the settlements of Tarbat Ness two centuries ago; I make no excuse for quoting them in the review. Apparently the book is still available from the Clan Mackenzie Society and the Amazon website but promoting it is not my primary intention here!
“Tain, Tarbet Ness and the Duke 1833” by Hamish Mackenzie
Book review, October 2012
The author of this book is to be congratulated on a fine piece of work, which, for anyone interested in the history of Ross-shire during the upheavals of the 19th Century, is essential reading. The book is very readable and has involved some original documentary research; it reveals an intriguing story. The tale emanates from a desire of the Duke of Sutherland to acquire lands in Ross-shire. Much of the original material was discovered in the Cromartie Muniments at Castle Leod and it is these papers which Hamish Mackenzie has so painstakingly studied – a labour of love indeed
By 1833 the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland were the richest couple in Britain, owning estates in Staffordshire, Shropshire and Yorkshire, as well as the most part of Sutherland in Scotland. They were able to draw on the revenues of the coal and canal investments of their estates in the south and pour significant amounts of money into “improving” their Sutherland estates. Hamish Mackenzies book tells us: “the coastal strip along the east coast was occupied by a neat orderly landscape of 36 single tenant farms each with its courtyard of buildings set amongst squared fields”. The Duke was also responsible for building roads, bridges and harbours in the county. Not satisfied with this, in 1833 at the age of 75, he looked to acquiring more territory and his eye fell on Tain and the Tarbetness peninsular across the water from Dunrobin Castle. In the event the Dukes plans for the purchase of these lands did not come to fruition because he died later that year; but the legacy of the plan, that of the documents at Castle Leod, give a remarkable description of the landscape on the Tarbatness peninsular at that time.
George Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Duke of Sutherland by Thomas Phillips
NOSAS Archaeology Blog 