Evictions on the Estate of Langwell Part C

EVICTIONS ON THE ESTATE OF LANGWELL FROM 1830-31 TO 1855

(To the Editor of the Dundee and Perth Saturday Post) Part C

Sir John Sinclair

"Sir John Sinclair, Bart, of Ulster, who gained European fame as an agriculturalist, was, strange to say, the originator of the deeds described above, and was succeeded in the estate of Langwell by James Horne, Esq. Whatever Sir John’s faults may have been, those under him enjoyed a considerable degree of comfort and prosperity. Herring and white fishing were carried on and encouraged by him in various creeks on the estate." 

Sir John Sinclair statue in Thurso dated to 1835 

Source: Canmore SC0117055

Donald Horne Turned Them Out

"But when the present man, D Horne, succeeded him in 1830, a very different line of conduct was pursued. His first act was to turn out two thriving villages on his estate, containing twelve families each, and who paid a rental of from £7 to £10, and possessed on an average ten head of cattle. One of these villages, Auchencraig, had a creek for fishing connected with it, where I have seen 14 boats engaged for seven weeks in the season at the herring fishing and landed and cured thousands of barrels of herring, and who carried on a considerable trade with the Moray Firth for the various commodities used in the herring trade. There were hundreds of pounds spent from time to time on the port for curing and harbour accommodation." 

Gutting Herring at Wick late 19th early 20th C 

Am Baile facebook

"Alas, where is it today? Anyone who remembered its ancient glory, visiting it now, could not fail to see the contrast. The crews of these boats were composed of the inhabitants of Auchencraig and Badbea, a village a mile to the east of Auchencraig, of which more afterwards. Kinsary, the other village treated in the same way as Auchencraig was situated on the north side of eastern Berriedale, which, after joining the western stream, empties itself into the ocean below the village of that name, the inhabitants of which engaged in the herring fishing with their neighbours at Newport, a little to the east of the river, and enjoyed equal prosperity with Auchencraig."

Looking from Ousdale up to the remains of some Auchencraig buildings and the start of the stone wall from where it runs a distance of just under 5 miles to below Langwell House.

Driven to the Four Winds

"The inhabitants of the villages were driven to the four winds of heaven, and their once comfortable habitations were demolished and used in building a five feet stone dyke around the place, which was of course converted to a sheep walk. A favoured few got patches of land at Newport and Badrinsary – waste pieces of bogs and quagmire, fit for nothing. Those at Newport got neat and comfortable houses built for them, a few hundred yards above the public road, and travellers passing by would set Mr Horne down as a model of a landlord, not knowing that the people had to pay a yearly instalment, over and above their rents, for the building of their houses."

"The district being depopulated, the fishing was discontinued, and those poor people were obliged to work for their human laird at the rate of 1s per day for full grown men, women and boys from 4d to 6d per day, and out of this pittance to support themselves and families, and pay their rents, for their crofts scarcely yielded anything. But those set down at Badrinsary were out of sight of the traveller and got leave to build themselves houses to suit themselves and right glad they were for it, as they reckoned their neighbours at Newport paid dearly for their whistle."

There are still several old buildings at Newport being used for farm or storage purposes and now with corrugated iron roofs. I don’t know if these buildings are the same as referred to by Alexander Gunn but I think it is likely they are.
A Native of Badbea To Be continued

My Comments:

The closing down of the seasonal fishing business at Auchencraig (aka Achnacraig) by Donald Horne seems hard to fathom. The fishing trade was financed and operated by independent operators. While the fishing provided desperately needed income for the poverty-stricken crofters it would not have necessarily added to the Laird of Langwell’s income – except to guarantee the rents the crofters owed him. Sir John Sinclair and both James and Donald Horne were sure that sheep farming would bring in untold wealth to them so pursued sheep no matter what. In the long run both the fishing and the sheep farming would fail. But the immediate consequences of closing down the Auchnacraig fishery to the Auchencraig and Badbea crofters were very severe and cut off a lifeline to survival. Many were evicted and left Scotland, while some moved to nearby miserable places, while yet others headed to Wick where the herring trade was still flourishing.

A good read, graphically describing the herring trade and the dangers at sea, is Neil Gunn’s 1941 novel Silver Darlings. 

Langwell Strath and Berriedale shore - Article X - Rambling Recollections of Berriedale, Badbea, & Neighbourhood – Part B

 
Article X written by Alexander Gunn aka A Native of Badbea was printed in the Northern Ensign on 15 January 1880 – Part B

Langwell Strath from Langwell to Ouagbeg. John Thomson’s Atlas of Scotland, 1832

Langwell Water Valley. Google Earth

“There was a meal mill at Langwell, and fine fertile fields capable of raising all kinds of crops in abundance. The Borgue of Langwell lay on the opposite side of the river; further up on the same side is Badaskerry. Opposite it stands Turnal, whose last tenant was a man of the name of George Gunn. Behind Langwell, is a fine tract of plantation, where I earned my first wages, engaged in planting this hillside, where I was paid at the rate of fourpence per day. After leaving Langwell, and passing Turnal, the traveller passes several fine haughs, once the habitation of a happy and industrious people, and then he reaches Brae-na-heglash. The ruins of a chapel is found here, from which the place derives its name. Further up the Strath is Ault-na-bea, or the "witchie burn," and at the extreme end, and adjoining the march between Sutherland and Caithness, is Uag of Berriedale. This is a distance of about ten miles from Berriedale, in a northerly direction, and all this distance was once inhabited, and the fertile haughs cultivated, and yielding splendid crops. 

Both straths were covered over with a thick copse of native birch, hazel rowan tree, sauch and alder, which imparted a very pleasing aspect to the landscape. But such a state of matters did not please the folk at Auchastle, and orders were issued to have the wood cut down, which of course was done, only a tree left here and there, giving the Straths a cold and barren appearance in comparison with what they previously had.”

Ruined cottage at Brae-n-h-Eaglais	Braigh-na-h-Eaglaise
Langwell Water Valley	Langwell Water Valley
Ruins of settlement at Wag aka Ouagbeg	Autibea from the south west. An old deserted estate cottage.

“At Berriedale there was a good fishing, the boats numbering thirteen. They landed and cured their fish for the most part at the pier at the back of the castle. But Mr James Horne took it in his head to have a salmon fishing there, and as a matter of course the herring fishing had to give way to the salmon fishing. Newport was next tried for the herring fishing, but the place was not suitable, and was discontinued, and this branch of industry, which afforded means of employment to a great many on the estate, and was the means of circulating a considerable amount of money yearly in the district, was abolished to gratify the whim of one individual.”

Berrydale 1820 William Daniell showing herring fishing activities.	Berriedale old shore cottages before restoration

Old mill at Mill Road, Berriedale. This mill was originally built as a meal mill and converted to a saw mill at a later date	Turnal Burn

My Comments:
The Gaelic names of places have various spellings

• Brae-na-heglash, Brae na-h-Eaglais
• Aultnabea, Aultibea
• Uagbeg, Wag or Uag of Berriedale
• Borgue of Langwell
• Badaskerry I think is Cnoc Bad Asgaraidh
• A haugh is a riverside meadow.

Alexander Gunn continues his lament for the Clearances of the land at the whim of a few individuals. For Gunn every small settlement or place of a few cottages was not only a place that grew crops in abundance – but was a place that sustained real families and friends. Gunn’s own family were cleared from Badbea for no apparent reason. So the haughs aren’t just beautiful meadows by the river but deserted homelands, cleared by estate owners and their managers. And over again Gunn publicly names the proprietors - Sinclair, J Horne and D Horne - who inflicted their ‘transformation by eviction’ schemes on people who had been settled in areas for generations, causing them to be scattered far and wide. While many commentators suggest the croft farming was not sustainable anyway, as it turned out neither were the sheep farming ventures that caused so much hardship. And really, it was the cruel and heartless attitudes and actions of the landed proprietors that were, and are still, deeply controversial.

Alexander Gunn’s father John Gunn was the miller at Ousdale which closed after Auchencraig was cleared. He next became miller at the Berriedale mill for a few years – the mill was originally built as a meal mill and was converted to a saw mill at a later date – before he was moved on.

I am particularly interested in Ouagbeg as my great, great grandfather John McLeod was shown on his 1822 marriage record as being a shepherd in Ouagbeg. He went on to Rumsdale to manage the large ‘sheep walk’ there for forty years.

The development of the salmon industry by Donald Horne has a modern twist. At some point in the 1840s, after clearing the herring business out and changing to salmon fishing, Horne built some fisherman’s cottages and an ice house at Berriedale. From here the salmon were packed in ice and shipped to London. The old shore cottages have recently been restored by the Landmark Trust and are available for hire.

The Berriedale Shore Cottages restored by The Landmark Trust

The photos I have gathered from that wonderful site Geograph show the present day remnants of tracks, stone walls, old houses - all now deserted landscapes. In this overcrowded world of ours now such landscapes may seem picturesque and desirable but the stories of how they got like that are anything but, and are worth remembering.