Scenes on the Coasts of Sutherland and Ross

 Scenes on the Coasts of Sutherland and Ross

Helmsdale

Inverness Courier 27 January 1841 Part A

In the Inverness Courier 27Jan1841 there is an article entitled “Scenes of the Coasts of Sutherland and Ross.” From the Helmsdale quay at the close of a successful fishing season the writer (who is heading to Tarbatness) gives an account of the departure of a party of emigrants. Not only is their departure in a small boat cold and wet but their pain and grief is excrutiating.  

Because of the length of the original article it will need to be posted in several blogs.

Helmsdale by William Daniell 1822

 “Among the smaller towns on the northern coast of Scotland, which owe their being to the herring fishery, there is none, in our judgement, more pleasing and picturesque than the thriving port of Helmsdale. A striking and pleasant spot it is, situated at the embouchure of a wild Highland strath, amidst the long vistas of which the river is seen winding its way amongst rocks and birchen knolls, with bold precipitous hills rising behind it on either side, and the long swell of the German ocean clothing the rocks which line the coast around it with a roaring barrier of surf”. 

View from Castle about 1936 Tuck Postcard

“No one who can admire aught save soft scenery, and who has an eye for marine beauty, can be disappointed as (always in the proper season) he takes his stand under the crumbling ruins of what is still called the Castle of Helmsdale, built upon a grassy eminence, rising above the town, and watches the scene below him”. 

“There is the busy harbour, with its fleet of boats, and the green knolls rising from the river’s edge, and perhaps embrowned with the nets spread out to dry, and the fine bold span of the bridge which crosses the deep salmon pools, and the lively irregularly built town, occupying the terraces which rise abruptly from the sea-side, and teaming with all the bustle of a stirring and industrious population”.

 “And then before him over what a vast expanse the eye reaches ! – the dark heaving waters of the Moray Firth, foaming and tumbling over the bar at the mouth of the river, and stretching way in long, dim, expanse, speckled with the white sails of the galliots of Denmark and Holland, or, perchance, the darker canvas of our own fishermen”. 

Dutch Galliot unloading. Great Yarmouth by E. W. Cooke. 1828. British Museum

“To the right is Tarbetness – that long, flat, brown promontory –  extending far into the Frith, with the guiding lighthouse conspicuous upon the extremity; while in the far distance, and half confounded with the clouds rise the shadowy hills of Banff and Moray, and Inverness shires”.

To be continued…

My Comments:

The old Helmsdale castle was built in the 15^th century for the Countess of Sutherland. It was rebuilt and repaired in 1616 by Alexander Gordon of Garty and was later used as a hunting lodge. Helmsdale Castle eventually fell into ruins and was demolished in the 1970s to make way for the new A9 road bridge.

The present village of Helmsdale was planned in early nineteenth century to resettle communities that had been removed from surrounding straths as part of the Highland Clearances. The clearance of local people, as this story shows, went on for decades.

The old arched bridge (which is still there) was designed by Thomas Telford and completed in 1811.