Baillie's Houses, Olrig

[marionq]

One of my Sutherland ancestors seems to have been living in the Baillie's Houses, Olrig while working as a labourer at the Flag Works. Anyone know what these houses were and something about this Flag work factory or whatever it was. This was in 1871.

Marion

[trinkie]

Hallo Marionq,

I cant help you with the Baillie Houses I'm afraid..... I'd guess some kind of tied housing connected to the quarry.
If you cant get info here, then contact or google the Castletown Heritage centre, they will know.
Caithness of course, is world famous for it's flagstone. You will find pavements in London, Paris, New York etc, all using Caithness Flagstone. There were several quarries around the county - employing many of our ancestors.
If you google flagstone + caithness you will get some good info which I'm sure you will find most interesting.

Kind regards
Trinkie

[marionq]

Now that's where local knowledge comes in Trinkie. I had quite the wrong kind of flags in mind! Thanks for that.

Marion

[plumber]

There are four or five small houses in a row, they are called Baillies Buildings, they are in Castletown, and still lived in, don't know if they are the same houses you are looking for