Metalattakk
08-Mar-08, 16:44
Some years ago now, I was taken on a fishing trip into the hills of southern Caithness.
The plan was to tramp 3 miles off the beaten track to a wee bothy halfway up Ben Alisky, camp overnight, then spend the best part of the next day fishing at a wee loch nearby, called Loch Breac.
You can find it marked on this map - just click the 'Photo Map' button and it will open in a new window: http://www.geo.ed.ac.uk/scotgaz/features/featuredetails2287.html (http://forum.caithness.org/go.php?url=http://forum.caithness.org/go.php?url=http://forum.caithness.org/go.php?url=http://forum.caithness.org/go.php?url=http://forum.caithness.org/go.php?url=http://forum.caithness.org/go.php?url=http://forum.caithness.org/go.php?url=http://www.geo.ed.ac.uk/scotgaz/features/featuredetails2287.html)
It'll look like this:
http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z55/Metalattakk/loch-breac1.jpg
Now, the interesting bit is just to the north-west of the loch. You might be able to make out a small square walled enclosure, this is where the bothy we camped at is.
http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z55/Metalattakk/loch-breac2.jpg
So, there is a square enclosure, with the bothy in the bottom-right area, and along the outside of the wall there is the remains of a two-room house. (Use the map link and zoom in as close as you like.) To the north, there is another two houses and a smaller enclosure, and right next door to the south, there is another house and a long straight wall that just suddenly stops.
Who lived here? And more importantly, why? There is nothing for miles around. The land is far from arable, so crop-growing would not have been an option. A few neeps and tatties perhaps?
Could it have been home to a shepherd, brought in after the clearances? Most probably. But why build such a home so far from anything else? There are no access roads, only a 'keeper's path which runs nearby.
On the way home the next day, we stopped and asked the 'keeper at Dalnawillan Lodge, who told us that the settlement was inhabited up until about the early 1950s. Could someone really have lived there so recently?
The whole place fascinates me. What standard of living did these people have? Indeed, what did they live on? How did they build this settlement?
(And as an aside, you know how getting low-level images of Wick and surrounding areas is impossible with Google Earth and Microsoft's Live Search? Well, the map I link to above covers all of the north of Scotland at a low level. Check it out!)
The plan was to tramp 3 miles off the beaten track to a wee bothy halfway up Ben Alisky, camp overnight, then spend the best part of the next day fishing at a wee loch nearby, called Loch Breac.
You can find it marked on this map - just click the 'Photo Map' button and it will open in a new window: http://www.geo.ed.ac.uk/scotgaz/features/featuredetails2287.html (http://forum.caithness.org/go.php?url=http://forum.caithness.org/go.php?url=http://forum.caithness.org/go.php?url=http://forum.caithness.org/go.php?url=http://forum.caithness.org/go.php?url=http://forum.caithness.org/go.php?url=http://forum.caithness.org/go.php?url=http://www.geo.ed.ac.uk/scotgaz/features/featuredetails2287.html)
It'll look like this:
http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z55/Metalattakk/loch-breac1.jpg
Now, the interesting bit is just to the north-west of the loch. You might be able to make out a small square walled enclosure, this is where the bothy we camped at is.
http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z55/Metalattakk/loch-breac2.jpg
So, there is a square enclosure, with the bothy in the bottom-right area, and along the outside of the wall there is the remains of a two-room house. (Use the map link and zoom in as close as you like.) To the north, there is another two houses and a smaller enclosure, and right next door to the south, there is another house and a long straight wall that just suddenly stops.
Who lived here? And more importantly, why? There is nothing for miles around. The land is far from arable, so crop-growing would not have been an option. A few neeps and tatties perhaps?
Could it have been home to a shepherd, brought in after the clearances? Most probably. But why build such a home so far from anything else? There are no access roads, only a 'keeper's path which runs nearby.
On the way home the next day, we stopped and asked the 'keeper at Dalnawillan Lodge, who told us that the settlement was inhabited up until about the early 1950s. Could someone really have lived there so recently?
The whole place fascinates me. What standard of living did these people have? Indeed, what did they live on? How did they build this settlement?
(And as an aside, you know how getting low-level images of Wick and surrounding areas is impossible with Google Earth and Microsoft's Live Search? Well, the map I link to above covers all of the north of Scotland at a low level. Check it out!)