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trinkie
30-Apr-07, 07:26
I know only a few, so much help will be needed here.

from ''Old Thurso'' by Donald Grant ... ..
''Thurso is a very old town . There is frequent mention of it in the Norse sagas, but apart from that we have very little information on the first 700 years.
It was erected into a Free Burgh of Barony in 1633.....''

( a few lines at random by me )

c. 1735
High Street
Shore Street
Durness Street
Wilson Street
Bank Street
Cowgate
Princes Street
Traill Street
Fisherbeeggeens
Rotterdam Street...... which...
still languished under the name of The Black Gutter.



E&OE.

bky
30-Apr-07, 07:40
Duke Street

Sporran
30-Apr-07, 07:57
Also from "Old Thurso" by Donald Grant:

In 1876, the Prince and Princess of Wales visited Thurso to open an Exhibition of Art and Industry. To mark the occasion, the street running from the railway station to Olrig Street was renamed Princes Street. Prior to that, the section from the station to Davidson's Lane was known as Ulbster Terrace, from Davidson's Lane to St Peter's Church was Sutherland Street, and from St Peter's to Olrig Street was Forss Street.

trinkie
30-Apr-07, 19:54
Thank you bky - where is Duke Street?
Do you know which Duke...... should we guess - Sutherland ?

Thank you too Sporran. The year you mentioned - 1876 was quite a year in Caithness.
The Exhibition was indeed opened by Edward Prince of Wales, later Edward 7th
I quote...
" The fact that a town over 600 miles from London, could emulate the Great Exhitition at Crystal Palace, London (1851) is no small feat and both exhibitions were opened by the same person !
Indeed, there was a great interest in Fine Art in Caithness at the time.......
........It was at this time that four exhibitions of Industry and Fine Art were held in Caithness - three in Wick and one in Thurso"
In Calder's History he tells us that at one of the Exhibitions
the Chief Patron was Queen Victoria !



May I add that same year there was a tragic Fishing disaster in the County and a Relief Fund was immediately set up.. A few months later they had raised £1,004 -- about £100,000 in today's money ! quite something !

Jeemag_USA
30-Apr-07, 21:43
I grew up on Howburn Road, where does that get its name from? Named after a burn maybe?

Sporran
01-May-07, 06:44
I grew up in Rockwell Crescent in Thurso. The street is named after part of the rocky area that lies below the cliffs of Victoria Walk, between Thurso Beach and Burnside.

trinkie
01-May-07, 07:45
Jeemag USA

Your Howburn - could that be a dialect form of Holburn ?



Anyone know ?

bky
01-May-07, 07:49
Duke St is the wee lane between Ross' paint shop and the back of what was the GPO garage

Sporran
01-May-07, 18:03
Bky, I have looked up a couple of on-line maps, and still can't find Duke Street. Do you know the names of the other streets that it runs between? I looked up the Caithness Business Index, and found that William Ross's "Paint Spectrum" is on Couper Square.

trinkie
01-May-07, 19:50
BKY..... I'm not having any luck with Duke Street either.
Usually a street named something as grand as 'Duke' would have been a bigger street than the one you describe. Imho !
How old are the houses round about - are they part of old Thurso?
Maybe one hundred years or more?
-------------------------------------------------

Here's a snippet from Donald Grant's little book which by the way, is fascinating - do look out for a copy if you can. Mine is called
Caithness Notebook No 4 OLD THURSO.

"Before tolls were abolished in 1878 Thurso had three toll bars
governing its exits and its entrances, the East or Bridgend Toll which still carries the name, the West or Scrabster or Gillock Toll where Durness Street and Olrig Street meet, and the South of Castlegreen Toll where the Station Hotel now stands ( c. 1960s)

highlander
01-May-07, 20:37
Here is a map of thurso dated 1580-1769 you will find duke street here
http://www.nls.uk/maps/early/towns.cfm?id=1923

Sporran
01-May-07, 21:05
I have the exact same book as you, trinkie! The very first edition from October 1966, in fact! The price on the cover is 5/- (5 shillings!) :cool: I remember buying it at the bookshop in Tollemache House, next door to the music shop by the Arcade in Thurso. I have also recently found my copy of "Thurso Then & Now", which I had misplaced for 2 years or so. I was delighted to find that again, as I treasure it just as much as my "Old Thurso" book! It is by Falconer Waters and Donald Grant, and was first published in November 1972. I possess the first edition of that too, and bought it in the same bookshop! Price on the cover is a mere 45p. :D

bky
01-May-07, 21:31
thanks for the map Highlander - i found Duke St on an old map in The Thurso Club dated 1872 - it shows Ulbster Terrace - Sutherland St and Forss St before it became Princes Street - so im no sure exactly how old the map is - i worked in the bridge end toll shop when Tommy Riley owned it as a printers and stationary shop before he moved to next to woodbees

Jeemag_USA
01-May-07, 23:42
Jeemag USA

Your Howburn - could that be a dialect form of Holburn ?



Anyone know ?

Mmm I don't think so, Howburn Rd is a new street, part of the atomics, there is already a Holborn Avenue which was around before Howburn road I think. I am wondering if comes from a stream in the are before the atomics, maybe called Howe Burn or something, no idea like really but don't think it comes from Holburn, either got to be name after a burn or a person I think.

Sporran
02-May-07, 16:59
Here is a map of thurso dated 1580-1769 you will find duke street here
http://www.nls.uk/maps/early/towns.cfm?id=1923

Thanks for that, highlander. I have now found the street! :)

I also found Rock Well and Rockwell Point along the rocky shoreline on that map, between Thurso Beach and Burnside. :cool: As I mentioned in a previous post, I grew up in Rockwell Crescent, in the Pennyland housing estate.





thanks for the map Highlander - i found Duke St on an old map in The Thurso Club dated 1872 - it shows Ulbster Terrace - Sutherland St and Forss St before it became Princes Street - so im no sure exactly how old the map is - i worked in the bridge end toll shop when Tommy Riley owned it as a printers and stationary shop before he moved to next to woodbees

The map is 135 years old, and was printed before Princes street became so named in 1876. Does the wee lane you spoke of earlier actually have a sign up saying Duke Street, bky?




Mmm I don't think so, Howburn Rd is a new street, part of the atomics, there is already a Holborn Avenue which was around before Howburn road I think. I am wondering if comes from a stream in the are before the atomics, maybe called Howe Burn or something, no idea like really but don't think it comes from Holburn, either got to be name after a burn or a person I think.

The Howburn Road houses were built in the mid to late 50s, Jeemag_USA. Holborn Avenue, in the Glebe, was built in the 40s, I believe. Gleeber or Gleber2 could confirm for us, perhaps.

I'm sure there probably was a How or Howe Burn at one time, just as we still have the Wolf Burn (Wolfburn). That whole area must have been mooreland at one time, hence the name Heathfield, as in Heathfield Road, which runs into Howburn Road, as you know.

bky
02-May-07, 20:03
i dont think there is a sign on Duke St - i remember somebody used it as a clue in a treasure hunt

gollach
02-May-07, 20:40
I've not seen a sign on Duke Street either.

Interested to hear Trinkie mention the west toll where Olrig Street and Durness Sreet meet. That would make it at foot of George Street where the Esplande steps come up to street level, I think.

Was there a toll building there once upon a time, like we have the turnpike-shaped buildings in Shore Street and the precinct? Or was it just a barrier in the middle of the road?

Dusty
03-May-07, 10:46
I was told that the area at the top of Durness Street near the Esplanade steps was known as Booragtoon (sp) at one time and that there is still a house there carrying that name.
Does anyone know the origin of the name?

Dusty.

trinkie
03-May-07, 11:11
Hallo Dusty..
from the book by Donald Grant "Old Thurso" I quote -

"Localities and Names of Old Thurso

Aeneas Bayne, in his Survey of Caithness 1735, remarked of Thurso "It is a neat little fashionable town..... There is one principall street, severall wynds and sufficient buildings in it"
The town at that time centred round the High Street, Shore Street, Durness Street, Bank Street, Wilson Street and the Cowgate. Princes Street and Traill Street were still country lanes and Rotterdam Street languished under the name of the Black Gutter. Round the river mouth huddled the houses of the "Fisherbeeggeens" then the oldest part of the town which, like Tospy, had 'just growed' in a day when town planners were unheard of. Nearby, in the Durness street area, the houses of Booragtoon, crouched under their thatched roofs and beside each stood a stack of ''boorags' , peats cut from near the surface of the Moss of Geise or the Moss of Weydale, the two mosses allowed to the townspeople by the Superior..........."

Dusty, that doesn't really answer your question, but I'll keep looking.
In the meantime maybe someone local will come up with a better reply .



E&OE

gollach
03-May-07, 12:25
I was told that the area at the top of Durness Street near the Esplanade steps was known as Booragtoon (sp) at one time and that there is still a house there carrying that name.
Does anyone know the origin of the name?

Dusty.

There is a house with that name at the top end of Durness Street (behind the police station). I think that it might be the house where Henrietta Munro, who used to own the Ship's Wheel antiques shop (where the Bistro is now), used to live.

Dusty
03-May-07, 13:00
Thanks for that Trinkie, I now have a mental picture of these thatched cottages at the edge of the inhabited area of Thurso with their stacks of peat outside, a la Mary Ann's Cottage.

I was told by my father's cousin that she asked her mother (who lived in Wilson Street at the time) if they could move too when my Nana moved from Shore Street to Holborn Avenue and they had the novelty of electric lighting in the house. She replied that she would not go to live in the "Country". So it seems that some of the old timers regarded the Glebe as suburbia!
I also remember my Nana's Bayview Terrace house having the gas mantle fitting in the centre of the ceiling as well as the electric light.

Sorry folks, nostalgia has taken me off topic.

Dusty.

trinkie
03-May-07, 13:32
Dusty - To embellish your mental picture of the area.....

Under the heading Keeping Thurso Clean.......

"The authorities were up against ''deugened'' customers.
In 1880 the Cleansing Committee undertook a minute inspection of the town and when they had completed half of it they handed in a report.
It contained 29 serious complaints, among them the following -

"An open sewer near the top of Janet Street is so disgusting to sight and smell that people avoid passing near it''

''Brabster Street is in a terrible filthy state with two dunghills near the top end''

''The surroundings of the Company's smithy near the Island is a disgrace to the locality.''

''In Wilson's Lane there are very disgusting heaps of manure opposite the doors and windows of tenants, besides a pig kept in the same place.''

''The sheds and slaughterhouse of Mr Donald Sutherland, flesher, cannot well be described. Anything we can say would fall short of the necessary description of these premises. Nothing like it exists in any town in Scotland.''

''The present filthy state of the town far exceeds anything ever seen beforte by or known to us.''


E&OE

Trinkie

Dusty
03-May-07, 14:37
Gollach,

Thanks for the info, I thought I remebered seening the name somewhere.
Would that be the lady responsible for the Hetty Munro Papers?
The Ship's Wheel fascinated me when I was a kid, probably because of the association with the Queen Mother.


Trinkie,

Your description is very graphic and could also be describing an area not too far distant from my current home, so some things have not changed all that much in 120 odd years.
It must have been quite a job for the local authorities to keep the streets clean at that time as I have noticed similar complaints in municipal records for my area as well. The keeping of pigs and chickens, the operation of slaughterhouses and the housing of the dead have all been mentioned as causing a nuisance and having the gutters running with filth.

Thanks both,
Dusty.

gollach
03-May-07, 18:48
Would that be the lady responsible for the Hetty Munro Papers?

Yes, that's her.

trinkie
03-May-07, 19:04
You will find several stories by Hetty Munro here on caithness.org.
Her War Diaries are particularly interesting.
There is also a good item on the Thurso Poorhouse which was near Halkirk. ( Especially interesting if you are into Family History. )
Each article is well worth reading.

Sporran
03-May-07, 22:11
They certainly are, trinkie! :)

Here are links to some of them, folks.

http://www.caithness.org/caithnessfieldclub/bulletins/1997/hetty_munro_memoirs.htm

http://www.caithness.org/history/articles/thursocombinationpoorhouse.htm

http://www.caithness.org/history/articles/earlyroyalvisittothurso.htm


Perhaps Couper Street and Couper Square in Thurso are named after a woman called Christian Couper, of whom Hetty writes here:

http://www.caithness.org/history/articles/christiancouper.htm

trinkie
04-May-07, 11:35
Keeping the Peace on Thurso Streets

From Donald Grant’s book

“….At that time there was much drunkenness and disorderly behaviour in the streets of Thurso on Saturday evenings and in 1867 the Commissioners, in an effort to improve matters, asked masters who paid their employees on a Saturday to change to some other day of the week. Not that drunkenness was confined to Saturdays ! On a Sunday morning of that year a number of young men paraded the streets in a state of intoxication, cursing and swearing and causing disturbance and annoyance. The Commissioners expressed their astonishment that the police took no action, indeed no notice, although a constable was supposed to be on duty at the time. They requested the Committee to staff Thurso with more efficient men than those they had palmed off on them and to put them under the direct control of the Thurso Commissioners. A few weeks later the Sergeant of Police complained of idlers congregating at street corners and obstructing the passers-by. What was he to do about it, he asked. The Commissioners, shocked by such ignorance, told him that if he didn’t know he should ask his superior officer, the Chief Constable . This was further proof of inneffiency and they appealed to Colonel Kinloch for aid in obtaining redress for the trials they had to bear. If a reply was received it was not recorded.
Two years later they again appealed to the Commissioners of Supply and to the Secretary of State, praying that their connection with the county police be dissolved, but to no avail.
In 1872 the Prison Board gave permission for three cells in Thurso Police Office to be licenced to hold prisoners, but only males and for a period not exceeding three days.”

Later ……” In 1876 it was the prevalance of profane swearing on the streets and the practice of some boys of congregating at the gasworks on Sunday afternoons and desecrating the Lord’s Day by swinging on a crane. A little later the Commissioners wrote to the Chief Constable asking him to bring home to the Thurso police the great need for increased vigilence. They complained that parties walking the Esplanade were being interfered with and that groups of idlers were congregating on the seats and at street corners on Sundays, causing disturbance.”

Further on …..”The records about the turn of the century –(1800 1900) are full of complaints, of ‘depredations in the suburbs seldom visited by the police’ of the
behaviour on the streets on Sunday evenings, of damage to seats along the Victoria Walk, the Esplanade, the Riverside, of carters racing along the streets and round corners, of young persons out at unreasonable hours, of workmen and boys running barrows and bakers carrying bread on the pavements, of broken street lamps, of football in the streets and of boys and idlers overcrowding the railway station at the time of arrival or trains.”

E&OE

bky
04-May-07, 12:26
so not a lot has changed in all those years

Sporran
07-May-07, 19:28
From "Thurso Then And Now" by Falconer Waters and Donald Grant:

SIR JOHN SQUARE

"Sir John Square was earlier known as MacDonald Square, an open piece of ground presented to the town by Sir Tollemache Sinclair in 1879. It was to be laid out as an enclosed terraced garden. The name was changed in 1893 to commemorate Sir Tollemache's grandfather, Sir John Sinclair, one of Thurso's most illustrious sons. He made an outstanding contribution to the improvement of agriculture in Caithness and introduced Cheviot sheep to the county. He founded the Board of Agriculture and was its first President. But probably he is best known for his work in producing the first 'Statistical Account of Scotland'. His statue stands in the middle of the Square."


Also, according to Donald Grant's book "Old Thurso", Sir George's Street was known as Caithness Street until 1893. This is the street across from Sir John Square, that runs down to the Thurso Bridge. The Town Council sought to rename it Sir Tollemache Street, but Sir Tollemache said he would prefer to have it named after his father, Sir George.

trinkie
09-May-07, 18:57
Thank you Sporran - the book Thurso then and Now - is it still in print? It sounds rather interesting.

I'm not so up on my Thurso streets.
Can you tell me is there a Sir George street and a George street in Thurso ? If so - are they named after the same George ?

Trinkie

gollach
09-May-07, 22:42
Sir George Street is the street from the war memorial to the road bridge. (It is also the street that Skinandis is on.)

George Street is the street behind the ERI building (old West Public School). It ends on Olrig Street at the top of the steps to the Esplanade.

Sporran
11-May-07, 06:28
Thank you Sporran - the book Thurso then and Now - is it still in print? It sounds rather interesting.

I'm not so up on my Thurso streets.
Can you tell me is there a Sir George street and a George street in Thurso ? If so - are they named after the same George ?

Trinkie


I think the book is out of print now, but I could be wrong. Like "Old Thurso", it was printed and published by John Humphries at Caithness Books, 1 Bank Street, Thurso. This was in 1972, and I'm not sure if the publishing business still exists, or not.

George Street is exactly where gollach describes, but apparently it didn't exist in 1872, as it is not on the map of that date.

http://www.nls.uk/maps/early/towns.cfm?id=1923

Parallel running Duncan Street is there, but not Castle Street where the old West Public School was built. When I was growing up in Thurso, I always assumed that George Street was named after one of our King Georges, as in so many British towns and cities.

In 1798, Sir John Sinclair of Ulbster built Thurso's New Town to the south and west of the Old Town with wide streets laid out on a regular grid. Today much of the original pattern of both old and new towns exists. (This is the same Sir John whose statue stands in the Square named after him). Janet Street, next to Thurso Bridge and River, was one of the earliest parts of the New Town to be developed. It received its name from Lady Janet, Sir John's mother.

Sporran
17-May-07, 06:56
More from "Thurso Then And Now", compiled by Falconer Waters, text by Donald Grant:

"In 1879 a proposal to build a public convenience on the east side of Janet Street, opposite the house of a very prominent citizen, ended in a Court of Session case and as a result the street remained pure and unsullied. Today an official car park extends along that same side of the street and it has met with no opposition. It has proved to be a more acceptable convenience to the public.

In 1894 Sir Tollemache Sinclair presented to the town the narrow strip of land between Janet Street and the river, with the condition that the town should spend at least 300 pounds in laying it out as an attractive park. The townsfolk raised the money by subscriptions and the usual bazaars, trees and shrubs were gifted and the town became the proud possessor of the Mall, one of its most attractive assets."

Lavenderblue2
17-May-07, 08:40
Another interesting snippet, also from Donald Grant's book 'Old Thurso'.

In 1844 the Commissioners engaged Alexander Bain to paint, for the first time, the names of the streets at the corners from the bridge to the Breahead via Caithness Street, Traill Street, Rotterdam Street, High Street and Shore Street. By the time Bain’s account of £1-7-5½ came up for payment most of the names had flaked off and the streets were nameless again. When the Commissioners refused to pay, Bain offered to do the job again, whereupon he was paid 10/- to account. This time the painting was satisfactory. At the same time the proprietors of the premises along that route were ordered to furnish their buildings with rones, pipes and spouts, in an effort to preserve the roads and pavements.