The Saltwater Mill, Petty: A Wonder of the Parish

by Marion Ruscoe

When I first started looking at the site of the Saltwater Mill at Petty Bay, I was writing a general survey of industry in Petty Parish (2019).  I discovered that there was very little primary evidence for the mill and access to the site was not easy.  In fact, at the time, I couldn’t see how to get down to the site, since the Castle Stuart Golf Course had taken over the area to the north of the Church and fenced the course in.  It was only when Scape visited in 2022 that I finally managed to see for myself exactly where the mill had been situated.  At that time information about the mill was limited and much came from secondary sources.   As a result there wasn’t a clear picture of what it had been like.  Sources highlighted the double waterwheel and the fact that it operated on both incoming and outgoing tide.  There was also the suggestion that it may have been built Cromwell’s time.  But nothing of the mill building has survived, and only the remains of the bulwark which enclosed the mill dam at the eastern end of Petty Bay indicates that this feature, known as one of the wonders of the parish, ever existed.  However, during the last year a number of sources have been uncovered and these have added to our sum of knowledge and fleshed out the picture of the mill and the surrounding area. 

Site of the Saltwater Mill, 2023.  The fence posts indicate the line of the bulwark and the members of NOSAS are standing close to where the mill building would have been.

There’s no evidence to support the idea that it was built as early as Cromwell’s time, but the evidence does suggest that it did have a double wheel and that it operated on both outgoing and incoming tide. 

In the Moray Estate archives there’s a building contract dated 1673, which fixes the date of construction –

ane salt water milln at the [Kenōger] of Castle Stewart within the sea marke of the lenth breadth and hight and other conditions as folloves videlicet the said milln to consist in breadth of threttie sex foott in measur within walls sexteine foott of breadth and tenn foott hight from the floor of the said millne when the samen is in la[v]ell. The lavell [that be] is nixt the water to be of asler werke without tuo foott above the vater wheel and also the wheel postes within and without bothe sydes to be of the same as it reguards others postes and to be mented with flages under the inner and utter wheels, according as it shall be neidfull. As also shall three hewen doors wherof on is to be in the north gavell with ane sufficient stair leading therto with fyve windows and more if it be required and also the said Robert is heirby obliged to big the water wheel gaits of the said mill dame with asler werke untill the samen be suffiecent done and the cluse of the said milln is to be biged in the same forme with asler stone.

Transcript by C.McLaren

This contract gives some very useful detail.  The internal size is specified at 36’ (10.97m), by 16’ (4.87m), by 10’ (3m) high.  The mention of the ‘inner and utter wheels’ confirms that there were two waterwheels placed in parallel, and there were three doors, one in the north gable with a stair leading to it, and at least five windows.  There’s also mention of ‘water wheel gaits’ and a sluice (‘cluse’).  But this contract with Robert Niklesone, the mason at Cawdor, says nothing of the roof, or the machinery which would be needed, so it’s probably only one of several contracts with local craftsmen which have since been lost.

We can only surmise as to what the building looked like.  The estate map of 1808 shows it as a rectangular building at the northern end of the bulwark,  but 10’ in height doesn’t seem to be high enough to accommodate the machinery necessary, so it may be that a wooden superstructure  was added.  What we may have here is a contract for the base of the building in stone, probably because it was sitting at or near the high tide line.  The requirement for ‘aslar [ashlar] stone’ suggests that it was good quality and looked a very fine building.  The roof would have been thatched, but may have been slated in the C18.

A mill dam was constructed by building a dyke or bulwark across the eastern end of the bay and this feature is mentioned in Tours in Scotland, 1677 and 1688 by Thomas Kirk and Ralph Thoresby:

We crossed a bank by a mill, near Stewart Castle, a quarter of a mile over, in the middle whereof were a pair of flood-gates, whereby the dam was filled with the tide, and supplied the mill at low water.

This ‘bank’ is all that remains on the ground and Tom Watson’s aerial shot of the area (below), taken in 2022 when Scape visited the site, shows the remains with what looks like a stone-lined pit for the water-gates over the mouth of the Rough Burn.

Petty Bay on the Moray Firth, Inverness-shire

by Marion Ruscoe

1st ed. 25” OS map (NLS) 

Petty Bay lies approximately 5 miles east of Inverness.  Today it’s bypassed by the A96, but a map of 1798 shows that the original road from Inverness to Ardersier and Fort George looped off the Inverness-Nairn route at Allanfearn and joined the present B9039 at Castle Stuart Farm. The 1^st edition 25” Ordnance Survey map indicates a track running down between Castle Stuart and Castle Stuart Farm, and following the coast out to the point.

The area was clearly much busier than it is today.

The Old Statistical Account (OSA) notes that there are no harbours in this area of the Moray Firth, but

there are two or three places within this parish [Petty] where safe and commodious harbours for small vessels might be made at a small expense.

One of the places was Petty Bay, and goods were often unloaded there to avoid the shore dues in Inverness.  Adverts in the local press encouraged this practice.  Winter’s map of 1760 highlights this by drawing three sailing vessels in the bay.   In addition to the commercial and foreign trade activity, there were fishing communities along the coastline of Petty Parish, from Alturlie Point to Ardersier.   Evidence of all this activity can be found round the Bay and these have been recorded by SCAPE – a stone alignment which may be a slipway at Alturlie Point (15433); a possible jetty at Clattach (15487); a stone alignment which may be a fish trap to the east of Alturlie Point (15432); pier posts and fishing structures at Newton of Petty (15455). 

Remains of boat at east end of Petty Bay, 2022

In addition there’s evidence of abandoned boats around the bay.  At Clattach, SCAPE records a ballast mound which may be part of a boat graveyard (15466) and there are the remains of a wooden clinker-built fishing boat at Lonnie (15464).  There are also several ballast mounds and decayed timbers at the eastern end of the Bay.  

Abandoned boat at Lonnie, 2023

Crannogs: The Search Continues

by Richard Guest

Investigating a possible crannog at Loch Morie, June 2023

Almost three years has passed since the inception of the NOSAS Crannogs project, one sunny post-lockdown afternoon sitting around my patio maintaining a 2-metre separation, unable to meet inside but mightily pleased to be chatting face to face instead of by zoom.  Who had even heard of zoom before lockdown?  We hatched a cunning plan – to search satellite images for islands which might prove to be unrecorded crannogs.  Surely there must be lots of them, secreted away in remote glens where archaeologists rarely tread?  Well, no, actually.

Movement was still restricted so there was no shortage of volunteers, happy to have something different to do at home, and we soon had plenty of islands to look at in the field.  Some were explored in 2022 but by the start of 2023 we had a shortlist of very promising looking targets which certainly looked like crannogs from the shore.  They would need snorkelling or diving around to check out their underwater credentials to be sure whether they really were artificial constructions.  There was also the Loch Achilty crannog, which had been dived and surveyed in 2022 and where timbers had been found which could potentially be radiocarbon dated (see previous blog posts here and here).

Aside from crannogs, but continuing the underwater theme, I had spent two weeks in 2022 diving HMS Natal in the Cromarty Firth as part of a Nautical Archaeology Society project.  So it was that Claire Hallybone from NAS came up to present the findings of the Natal project at a NOSAS “MAD” evening (that’s Monthly Archaeological Discussion for the uninitiated) and also to dive some real and potential crannogs with me.

It was early March and whilst the weather was conducive to a jolly evening chatting in Strathpeffer Hall, for diving – not so much.  Nevertheless, we braved a chilly Loch Achilty and were successful in obtaining a timber sample from the shallower of two embedded timbers.  It was surprisingly hard work.  I made two parallel sawcuts in the edge of the wood and then tried to chisel out the bit in between with my knife but the wood was so hard I broke the tip off my knife. Eventually the sample was obtained but it took about 40 minutes, by which time we were shivering with cold and both agreed one dive was enough for the day and the second, deeper timber would have to wait for another time.

Loch Achilty crannog: This timber was radio carbon dated to c. 1359 AD, and another to c. 1060 AD (Duncan Ross)

Does Remote Loch an Tachdaidh Contain a Crannog?

by Roland Spencer-Jones

This remote loch is far from any normal vehicular access. The boundary between Attadale and Pait estates runs roughly SW-NE through the middle of the loch. Approach routes to the loch are from Pait on Loch Monar to the NE, Attadale towards the head of Loch Carron in the W, and Killilan via Strath Duilleach and the Iron Lodge to the SW. There are three islands in the loch, two of which are of interest.

OS maps showing location of Loch Tachdaidh

Historic Environment Scotland’s Canmore (ID 12075) and Highland Council Historic Environment Record (MHG44808 [Causeway] & MHG7444 [the island itself]) both describe the same features of a possibly artificial island in the southern part of Loch an Cladaidh. It is linked to a promontory on the south shore by two causeways to the SW and the NE.

The two historical references to this possible crannog are:

Odo Blundell’s 1913 paper: Further Notes on the Artificial Islands in the Highland Area. PSAS, vol XLVII, p 281:

The Gead Loch. He quotes correspondence with a local minister, the Rev. D. Mackay, Marydale, Strathglass who reports: “In this loch, which is just across the boundary between Ross-shire and Inverness-shire there are two entirely artificial islands, one of them with an evident causeway to the shore”.

Ordnance Survey visit by (NKB) 24th October 1966:

There are no crannogs on An Gead Loch, but at NH 0955 3797 about 15.0m from the S shore of Loch an Tachdaidh, there is a natural island 40.0 by 26.0m and 2.0m high, connected to the mainland by a well-defined causeway 3.5m. wide and protruding about 0.2m above the surface. There are no structures on the island.

As described above, Blundell recorded local knowledge of two crannogs in 1913 in An Gead Loch, which the OS names as the loch just to the north-east of Loch an Tachdaich, separated from it by a short river.  However, local tradition calls all three lochs here “The Gead Lochs”. There are no potential crannogs in the OS’s An Gead Loch, so it is fair to assume that the islands in Loch an Tachdaidh are the ones to which Blundell refers. 

The 1966 OS survey report states that the island 15m from the south-east shore is natural but the causeway to it is man made. After investigating it, that is our conclusion too. The island towards the SE shore of the loch is centred at NH 09580 37988, with two causeways:

• Southwest Causeway – NW end: NH 09572 37970, SE end: NH 09585 37958
• Eastern Causeway – NW end: NH 09595 37987, SE end: NH 09612 37978

Looking NW across Loch an Tachdaidh from the shoreline track. Note the proximal island we investigated. Of the two distal islands, the other potential crannog is on the R (Glenn Wilks).

Iron Age Hut Circles in the Middle of Nowhere: Submerged Prehistory in Upper Glen Cannich

by Roland Spencer-Jones

Does every excavation and discovery have a story behind it? Maybe. This one certainly does. When did the story start? With shepherds moving into empty land in the early 19^th century? With the gradual depopulation of Highland glens in the early half of the 20th century? With the construction of the largest dam in Scotland completed in 1952?

Maybe it’s best to start this story in early July 2021 with a walker and cyclist, Glenn Wilks, venturing into the remote west end of Loch Mullardoch. This large reservoir loch was created from two previous lochs, Lungard and Mullardoch, when a dam was built in upper Glen Cannich flooding the upper glen for a distance of 15km. The dry summer of 2021 produced unusually low water level in the loch, exposing kilometres of bare sand and gravel at its western end. The walker, Glenn, noticed that the now exposed reservoir bed contained several circular stone structures. Although he wasn’t an archaeologist, he recognised that these were special and so took photographs and videos as a record of what might soon be covered up by the water again.

One of hut circles exposed by the low waters of the loch (Glenn Wilks)

Once he was out of the glen, he contacted Historic Environment Scotland with the information and photos. A serendipitous encounter between one of the HES officers and the author in Beauly soon after this, ended with the officer sharing the knowledge of this new find. Fortunately, the author had himself been to this area before, on a walking trip in 2014 when the water level in the reservoir was much higher. So, he knew the area and the difficulty of access, and yet was enthused at the prospect of investigating these features.

Modern OS Map showing length of Glen Cannich and Strath Glass (OS)

Map of Lochs Lungard & Mullardoch before the Mullardoch Dam (OS)

The Legacy of Scotland’s Rock Art Project

by Alan Thompson.

NOSAS were partners in and major contributors to Scotland’s Rock Art Project (ScRAP) which ran for five years from January 2017 to December 2021.  We enjoyed some very productive field work and learned a lot about prehistoric rock art (sometimes called cup and ring marked rocks) and also about how to run a community-based project.

Figure 1 A favourite panel at Fleuchlady

This is not an attempt to analyse the rock art in our region or to provide a critique of what was achieved during ScRAP (for that it might be best to download the booklet produced at the end of the project – Prehistoric Rock Art in Scotland).   It’s more personal, really a set of memories and reflections on what we did, and a few suggestions for the future.  There is still more rock art to record in Northern Scotland and some of us would like to continue with that.  Should we therefore establish a new, perhaps smaller project, making use of our experience with ScRAP?

A bit of history

Our interest in prehistoric rock art begins with the Ross-shire Rock Art project (RRAP) led by John Wombell in the 1990s and early 2000s (before my time with NOSAS).  John and a NOSAS team set out to find and record the rock art in (broadly) Ross-shire.  This involved research of the records, contact with local people, a good deal of ‘fossicking’, and experiments with various methods of recording.  The output was mostly on paper, i.e. forms filled in and photos printed.  Many finds were notified to the Highland HER.

Figure 2 Pre-ScRAP photography, low-angle lighting

Inchberry Farm and Steading, near Beauly – A Relationship with Serendipity

by Roland Spencer-Jones

A new report entitled Inchberry – a settlement, a farm, a steading and a family has just been posted to the NOSAS website. It describes the history of a farm and steading at Inchberry, on the south side of the Beauly Firth. What was remarkable about the work that went into the report was that serendipity provided most of the information, rather than systematic archival research. That serendipity was in turn a product of relationships built up over many years. How often a chance encounter or a chance remark opens a door into new understanding or knowledge. Let’s see how it happened with Inchberry….

Serendipity One

The Lovat Estate Office in Beauly (c. NOSAS)

Out of the blue, on 8^th March 2021 the Director of the Lovat Highlands Estate, Iain Shepherd, emailed me to say that there were some interesting graffiti on the walls of a steading at Inchberry and would I like to see them. I had got to know Iain well in 2018 when I was able to work on the Lovat map archive, at that time housed in the Estate Office in the middle of Beauly. The Estate then generously funded the digital scanning of all the maps in the archive, which were subsequently uploaded to the National Library of Scotland website. A relationship was born, which we had both appreciated since.

Graffiti of HMS Hood (c. Lovat Highland Estates)

Graffiti of a Spitfire (c. Lovat Highland Estates)

The NOSAS Crannogs Project – Update, December 2022

by Richard Guest

The Crannogs project has now been running for a couple of years.  Starting as a desktop exercise, we have now progressed to some site investigation and have managed a couple of dives.

A second phase of desktop study is underway and a picture of potential crannog occurrence in Wester Ross, Lochaber and Badenoch is beginning to emerge.  Wester Ross has been a real challenge to study, with literally thousands of lochs and lochans, liberally scattered with innumerable islands.  Many of these will be natural and picking out those which may be man made is no easy task.

Loch Achilty crannog (HER MHG7791, Canmore 12472) being easily accessible, had already been snorkelled and this verified that it was an artificial island, so it was chosen as the first proper dive.  Duncan Ross from the Nautical Archaeology Society joined me for two days diving in August and you can find his blog on the experience elsewhere on the website, so I will not go into too much detail.  Travelling in the good ship “Haggis” of the Blackburn line, (a tiny rowing boat ably skippered by Dave Coombs) escorted by the canoes of James McComas and Steve North, we made landfall on the crannog, donned our dive gear and plunged in.

Surveying Loch Achility, August 2022.

We were able to find several substantial timbers embedded in the silt at the base of the stone mound, at a depth of only about two metres.  What these are, is open to debate but some of them appear to go underneath the stones so are probably part of the original construction.  There is certainly the potential to take a small sample for carbon dating and the NOSAS committee will need to decide whether the project is to go in this direction, or whether we continue to just observe and survey.

My Highland Adventure: Diving Loch Achilty Crannog and HMS Natal

by Duncan Ross

During lockdown, apart from eating too many pancakes, NASAC (Nautical Archaeology Society affiliated diving club) member Duncan Ross set himself a grand future task of visiting different kinds of underwater archaeological sites around Britain. This summer he managed to add a couple of unique Scottish sites to his gradually-expanding list.

After around two years of communication, in August 2022 I was invited to help out on a crannog investigation in the fairly anonymous Loch Achilty, just a little north of Inverness city. Assisting North of Scotland Archaeology Society (NOSAS) member Richard Guest and his intrepid team, I spent two days at a most-tranquil setting scuba diving, investigating, recording and taking photos and film of a site that could be anything from a couple of hundred years to a couple of thousand years old. 

Richard Guest explores mysterious timber and rocks around the Loch Achilty crannog: Image: Duncan Ross

Crannogs are a fairly unchartered area in the field of archaeology, and most questions about their creation and the purpose of their locations within lochs remain unanswered and open to speculation. All that usually remains is an artificial island of stones piled on top of one another – artefacts and human traces are frustratingly rare, as are diagnostic patterns that could lead to a method of classification. The crannog centre at Loch Tay focuses on the iron age roundhouse model that was discovered there, but little proof exists that others were constructed and utilised in the same way. The depth of the Loch Achilty crannog, previously unrecorded, is an ultra-accessible 2.5 metres. Needless to say, dive times were extremely long for Richard and myself.

Richard Guest and Duncan Ross prepare to place garden canes around the crannog to aid with measurements. Image: Elizabeth Blackburn

A Coastal Walk on the Moray Firth: Castle Stuart and Alturlie

by Anne Coombs

I don’t like the A96.  It’s a very busy road and the archaeology is not particularly exciting; crop marks and just the occasional cairn.  But here I was driving along from Inverness to Castle Stuart to meet the people from ScAPE, beginning their new recording project along the northeast coast.  The plan was to walk from Castle Stuart round towards Ardersier, with expectations of good company and a nice day out with a little bit of archaeology.

Aerial photo of the tide mill near Castle Stuart.

We walked past the old church and motte of Castle Stuart to the outfall of the Rough Burn where it flows into the Moray Firth.  It is a cliché to say it felt like we were stepping back in time, but looking out across to the Black Isle we could have been in a medieval landscape.  Salt marsh, an occasional seabird and nothing else.  Apart from, of course, a large bank across the edge of the salt marsh.  Not just any bank but one belonging to a tide mill (HER MHG36425).

So, let’s go back to the scene…… salt marshes, a substantial burn, an old church, motte and later castle.  Obviously, there must be a mill somewhere as part of this old settlement.  Tide mills don’t immediately come to mind in the Highlands, however if you have read Marion’s blog on Petty parish you would be expecting it.  They work on the same basic principle as any mill. A head of water drives a wheel, which turns the mill stones and grinds the corn.  A tide mill uses the sea water as its water source, as the tide comes in it fills the area behind the bank and once the tide turns, the water is kept behind the bank by the bank and a sluice gate until it is needed.  The site was duly recorded and on we went to a small wooden jetty, in disrepair but possibly not very old.  Next, we found a boat…..or rather the remains of a boat barely visible in the silt but definitely there.  Then out to the edge of the bay where the stones of a fish trap were being revealed by the outgoing tide. 

Fish Traps near Alturlie Point