A township that has survived the Highland Clearances
Residents banded together in a joint tenancy and shared responsibility for paying the rent and working the land, writes Alison Campsie
It is a remarkable window into old Scotland and a way of life lived for hundreds of years. Auchindrain in Argyll, a scattering of cottages and longhouses south of Inverary, was first recorded more than 500 years ago.
It is now considered the last standing example of a Scottish township, where residents banded together in a joint tenancy and shared responsibility for paying the rent and working the land residents banded together in a joint tenancy and shared responsibility for paying the rent and workin the land.
Today, it stands today much as it did in the late 1700s after surviving the Highland Clearances given its landowner, the Duke of Argyll, rejected advice to break down the township and turn the land into individual crofts. Incredibly, the township survived until 1963 when the last tenant, Eddie Mccallum, surrendered his tenancy with the Duke and left Auchindrain for good. His family had farmed there 1829.
“That was like an old song coming to an end,” said Bob Clark, director of The Auchindrain Trust, which runs the site as an open air museum. What we have at Auchindrain is the largest standing collection of vernacular rural buildings in the whole of the UK and possibly Northern Europe,” Mr Clark added.
“Auchindrain is just as significant as Callanish or Stonehenge. The townships, and there were thousands of them across Scotland, were fundamental to Scottish identity and in particular Highland and Gaelic identity which is found in the township from the period at the end of the Iron Age right up to the 18th Century. If you are looking at modern incarnations of Highland culture and asking yourself ‘where does it all start?’ well the answer is in the township.” The 8th Duke of Argyll believed that erasing the township and creating crofts in its place would offer a poor return on investment.
While his agents proceeded to clear land in his Hebridean estates, the Duke took on Auchindrain as his “pet project” from 1842 and “persuaded” tenants to adopt new farming methods, Mr Clark said.
Rent was put up amid the promise of increased productivity. The run rig system was phased out, fields wereintroducedwithhorses and new tools forged in Scotland’s industrial heartlands increasingly used for labour. Investment was made in drainage and more sheep were brought onto the land.
Mr Clark said: “The Duke was a more radical thinker than many Scottish landowners of the time who, in most cases, were embarking on eviction and compulsory modernisation. Here at Auchindrain, the Duke is our saving hero but don’t mention him in Tiree or the south of Mull, where his tenants were cleared.”
Only one family left Auchindrain in the 1840s to head for Canada with the population increasing during the period of the Highland Clearances as “refugees” from other townships sought new homes.
Up to seven families held the joint tenancy at Auchindrain at any one time with its largest population recorded in 1851 when 70 people called it home. Around this period, communities across the Hebrides and Highlands were further devastated by the potato blight, but Auchindrain continued to function given its cultivation of cereals. Residents of the seven main families of Auchindrain included Isabella Mccallum, or Bell a’phuill, the ‘wise woman’ of township who would administer herbal remedies and basic health care to her community. She she died in 1915, aged 93.
Another Mccallum was ‘wee Jock”, born in 1900, who almost died aged four or five after accidentally eating water dropwort.
His life was saved when a passing traveller administered opium to sedate him while the poison passed through his body. Auchindrain now runs several projects to support school pupils, young people and university students. An open day and festival will be held at Auchindrain on 5 August.