A History of the Road between Dingwall and Poolewe

From the written evidence of secondary sources and maps on the maps.nls and Scotlandspeople websites

by Meryl Marshall

Background

In the years before the 18^th Century the Highlands were regarded as a hostile backward country, travelling was difficult, there were few visitors and many journeys were made by boat. In 1793 George Brown reported that,

The most necessary and useful line of road betwixt East and West Sea through the four Northern Counties of Scotland […] is a line across the county of Ross from the town of Dingwall on the head of the Cromarty Firth, to Poolewe on the west coast by Contin, Strath Garve, Kanloch Laygart, Strath Brain and Caimsey to the junction of the river of Ew with the sea. Here the Lewis packet boat passes and it is the great line of communication to Inverness, Dingwall and […] that part of the coast which abounds with valuable fishing lochs. At a place called Auchnasheen a branch should break off and go westwards to Loch Carron and at Kenloch Ew another branch should turn off to Loch Torridon.

General Report H R & B 1803

In 1772, Pennant writes that Poolewe “is the station of a government packet that sails regularly from hence to Stornoway in Lewis […]This is a spot of much concourse; for here terminates the military road which crosses from the east to the west sea” (1998 p333). Over the years this route has seen many changes. Today the area around Gairloch and Poolewe is well known for its outstanding scenery and is frequented by a multitude of holiday visitors, some even choosing to spend their retirement here. This account explores the checkered history of the route.

Poolewe to Achnasheen – Johnson 1834

Haldane writes that there are “authentic records of a regular post to Lewis in 1756” (Haldane 1971 p175) and Dixon has “the post runner came from Dingwall by Strath Braan and Glen Dochartie to the head of Loch Maree then along the east (north) side of the loch via Letterewe to Poolewe”, coming “to Poolewe on Wednesdays and Saturdays walking “through the Rock” ie Bull Rock” (Dixon 1886 p147-148).

In 1786 John Knox reports that he had sailed from Stornoway to Poolewe in a small unseaworthy vessel used for the transport of cattle (Haldane 1997 p107). From the early 18^th century the export of cattle was important to the Highland economy. The beasts reared in the Outer Isles of Lewis and Harris were shipped from Stornoway to Poolewe before being “driven” south to the markets of Crieff and Falkirk. The New Statistical Account of 1845 for Stornoway records that near the town, “there is a square mile of moor enclosed for a cattle tryst where several thousand head are exposed for sale and at least 2,000 change hands in 2 days; from 20 to 30 drovers come from the Mainland and some from England”.

The First Road

Following the risings of 1715 and 1719 the Government undertook the construction of a network of roads to facilitate communications throughout the Highlands and suppress the Highland rebels. The project was supervised initially by General Wade and then until 1767 by Major William Caulfeild. The labour force was provided at first by the military and in later years, when the budget was reduced, by unskilled labourers (Haldane 1962 p8-9). The Dingwall/Poolewe road, built c1763-1768, was one of the later roads. The course of the road is marked on maps of 1793 and 1811 ( RHP11597, RHP11674 and RHP11675) and annotated “old road” (see Scotlandspeople website).

RHP11674  Plan of proposed road between Achnasheen and Loch Maree 1811

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)

Peter May, the Commissioners, NOSAS and the National Library of Scotland – a story of discovery

by Roland Spencer-Jones (NOSAS)

“Coigach is a very large country”

In 1756 a young man was sent by his employers to Coigach, the rough open wild country west of Ullapool. His job was to measure and survey the land. But he wasn’t altogether happy in his task. He wrote to his employers on 21st July:

The estate of Coigach is a very large country, and the subject difficult and tedious to measure, being little else but high mountains with scattered woods, steep rocky places, and a number of lochs in the valleys, which with the great distance there is between houses makes me obliged to sleep in the open fields for several nights together, which is dangerous in a climate where so much rain falls. I wish (you) would condescend to allow me a tent or otherwise I’ll have great difficulty to go through. There is no such thing as sleeping in their houses in the summer time, they are so full of vermin. Everything is scarce and dear, my living costs me more here than it does in Aberdeen although I can scarcely get bear bannocks.

(Adams, 1979, pp10-11).

The man was Peter May, his employers were the Commissioners of the Board for the Forfeited Annexed Estates.

The battlefield of Culloden saw the demise of more than the men who fought there. The clan chiefs who “came out” had their land appropriated by the Crown. Much of it was then ravaged, particularly those estates nearest Culloden. The Lovat estate at that time centred on the seat of the Fraser clan, Castle Dounie, at the head of the Beauly Firth. Castle Dounie was burnt following the battle. The estate comprised the parishes of Kiltarlity, Kirkhill and Kilmorack, near Beauly, the lands of Stratherrick on the south side of Loch Ness and a small section of land on the north side of that Loch at Dalcattick and Portclair. The Mackenzie estate of Cromartie consisted of land around Cromarty on the Black Isle, New Tarbat on the north side of the Cromarty Firth, parcels of land on the Tarbat peninsula, Castle Leod (near Strathpeffer), and the lands of Coigach on the west coast. Castle Leod was the ancestral seat, New Tarbat became the seat in the late 17th century, and the lands of Coigach were obtained in the dowry of Margaret Macleod of Lewis in 1606 (Clough, 1990, p3).

New Tarbat House in the late 17th century ©Canmore

A Little Piece of Coppice at Coulmore, Formerly on the Redcastle Estate

By Jonathan Wordsworth

Cycling regularly along the north shore of the Beauly Firth from North Kessock to Tarradale, I have noted just past Coulmore Point a small patch of woodland with a collection of twisted multi-stemmed trees.  Consisting predominantly of oak but with a mixture of species including ash and beech, the trees are widely spaced and used as shelter by stock grazing the field above.  As a result the wood has an open and sparse aspect.

The curving and multiple stems of the trees in the woodland show that this is a rare survival for this area of a former coppiced woodland, where the stems were cut down to  supply timber on a regular cycle of  15-20 years.

Coulmore and the woodland copse shown on current Bing aerial photography.  Note the caravan park at bottom right of photograph to help locate the woodland site.

Earlier maps show it was one of two similar sized copses set beside the road and on the edge of the raised beach.  They are both shown as wooded on the land utilisation survey of the 1930s shown below, though the western copse has now disappeared.

Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland https://maps.nls.uk/index.html

The Lovat Estate Map Project

by Roland Spencer-Jones (NOSAS)

©Colin Prior

In 1756 a young man had been sent by his employers to Coigach, a rough, remote area on the west coast of Scotland, just north of Ullapool. He wrote to those employers on 21^st July:

The estate of Coigach is a very large country, and the subject difficult and tedious to measure, being little else but high mountains with scattered woods, steep rocky places, and a number of lochs in the valleys, which with the great distance there is between houses makes me obliged to sleep in the open fields for several nights together, which is dangerous in a climate where so much rain falls. I wish (you)  would condescend to allow me a tent or otherwise I’ll have great difficulty to go through. There is no such thing as sleeping in their houses in the summer time, they are so full of vermin[1].

The man was Peter May, an Aberdeenshire land surveyor, and his employers were the Commissioners for the Forfeited Estates. After Culloden the British (London!) government forfeited, and therefore took possession of, the estates that had “come out” in the 1745 rebellion. Six years later an annexing Act was passed, in 1752, and three years later the Commissioners for the Forfeited Estates finally met. They wanted to know what lands they now administered, and also wanted to improve the economic performance of those lands. They therefore appointed land surveyors for the main 13 estates that were their responsibility, including the estates of Cromartie (the Mackenzie Estate, and hence Coigach) and Lovat. Peter May was appointed to these two estates, and produced a series of maps, surveying the entirety of the estate ground.

The archaeology of Urchany.

Urchany on the 1757 Peter May map.

I had seen a hand-drawn copy of one of these Peter May maps, pertaining to the Barony of Kilmorack, when NOSAS had undertaken a survey of the lands of Urchany, a multi-period deserted settlement west of Beauly. I was keen to see and study the original, which was said to be in the Lovat Estate offices in Beauly. After a little persistence, I was allowed to look at the map, which was a valuable experience. I then realised that the office contained many more maps that could also be relevant to the survey. Not all of the maps were known, even to the estate manager. I asked him if I could  catalogue and therefore research the whole map archive. He said yes!