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

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.

Updating Groam House Museum and Highland HER Pictish records

by Tim Blackie

In 2004, I was looking over my garden wall into Rosemarkie’s ancient graveyard and noticed gravediggers preparing a burial plot. Pictish sculpture has been discovered for over two centuries in the graveyard so I leapt over my wall and was told that it was an old family plot and a recently deceased woman was about to join her long-departed husband.

I asked if any pieces of stone had been recovered from the burial plot and I was pointed in the direction of a piece of dressed stone holding down the edge of the tarpaulin. After cleaning off the dirt, I noticed incised lines appearing on one side of the stone. It turned out to be a fragment of a Pictish grave marker dating to the 8th or 9th century. Carved on a finely dressed face was a quadrant of an incised ringed cross with the connecting ring and part of the shaft and one of the cross arms.

I have been interested in Pictish sculpture for many years and I co-authored ‘The Sculptured Stones of Caithness’ (Pinkfoot Press 1998). During my time living in Caithness, I had travelled the county examining old walls and clearance cairns near early chapel sites in the hope of discovering reused pieces of sculpture without success.  I was therefore seriously chuffed to have recovered a piece of Pictish sculpture in Rosemarkie graveyard, next door to my garden! This carved stone is now on display in Groam House Museum (GHM) (https://her.highland.gov.uk/Monument/MHG38857).

Incised ringed cross grave marker fragment – © Tim Blackie

The museum is famous for its unique and rich collection of Pictish sculpture and a visit to the museum is always inspiring with the magnificent Rosemarkie cross slab taking pride of place. There are also many other pieces of sculpture on display including parts of an altar or a shrine, emphasising the importance of Rosemarkie as a major monastic settlement in early medieval times (https://her.highland.gov.uk/Monument/MHG25214).

Some of the carved stones were discovered while repairing the medieval church in 1735 when “stone coffins of rude workmanship…” were revealed “…in a vault under an ancient steeple”¹, and others were found in the surrounding graveyard over the last two centuries. A number of other fragments of sculpture have been found more recently in local garden rockeries in Rosemarkie and Fortrose! The medieval church was demolished in 1821 and replaced by the current church.

^{1. Old Statistical Account Number XXVI Parish of Rosemarkie .}

Rosemarkie medieval church and graveyard – ‘Fort George, Ardesier and vicinity’ 1785 map (Fortrose and Rosemarkie)  © NLS https://maps.nls.uk/military/389.html

Petty Industry: The Evidence for Industry in a Highland Parish

by Marion Ruscoe (NOSAS)

Petty is situated on the east side of the Moray Firth and is bounded by the parishes of Ardersier, Croy and Inverness, although the boundary has changed on occasions.  It’s around 8 miles by 4 miles in size but originally was cut in two by the Moss of Petty, which was drained in the late C18.  The Old Statistical Account (1792) notes that ‘there are no towns, no villages, no manufactures in this parish’ (p.25), and the main occupation was farming and crofting, but some also followed other occupations – ‘taylors, weavers, shoemakers etc.’ (p.25).  The account also mentions four mills and some fishing.  The situation is well summarised in the New Statistical Account (1845):

Pettie may be described as an entirely agricultural parish, since the whole population, with the exception of the fishers, are employed directly in agriculture, or the subservient arts (p.398)

Petty parish

Background

In 2012, Anne Coombs of NOSAS suggested that we might consider recording evidence of industries in the Highlands.  At that discussion meeting some brainstorming produced a list of industries which might be relevant for such a study.  The time scale suggested was Mediaeval to World War 2, and Anne identified 3 questions which might/should be considered –

• How do we go about raising the profile of the Industrial Highlands?
• What qualifies as an industry?
• How can we identify the remains?

Following that suggestion, I decided to look at the industrial history and archaeology of Petty Parish.

To clarify the second point above, I defined industry as an activity which processes raw materials.  It’s clear that most industrial activity in Petty in the past has been to service the produce of the farms or provide the necessities for the people living in the parish.  As far as remains on the ground, since the area has been intensively farmed, it’s likely that archaeological sites will be few.

Mills

Thomson’s Atlas of Scotland, 1832 https://maps.nls.uk/view/74400137

Any agricultural society requires mills to process the grain produced and most landowners took advantage of this situation by providing mills and requiring tenants to use, and pay for, the services of particular mills.  It was no different in Petty where, according to the Old Statistical Account, there were four mills at the end of the eighteenth century (p.25) – at Connage, Culblair, Tornagrain and the salt-water mill on the shore near Castle Stuart.  These four mills probably reflected the four estates which held land in the parish.  By the time of the New Statistical Account, only one mill remained – that at Connage.  Since the area had become no less agricultural in the intervening years, some farmers must have been using mills in neighbouring parishes by this time.