IAIN THORNBER

Old estate sales’ catalogues and brochures are an amazing source of historical information. They provide a valuable insight into a way of life when agricultural and self-sufficiency was the order of the day and people took pride in the land they were responsible for and what it could produce.

The earliest Morvern sale catalogue I have is for Acharn which went on the market in 1776 when the owner, Captain Allan Cameron of Glendessary, was declared bankrupt.

In these days Acharn Estate amounted to 11,700 acres and included most of the land on the north side of Loch Aline, a good deal of what is now owned by Forestry and Land Scotland, above Loch Arienas and Loch Doirnamairt, as well as Corrospine and most of the White Glen. It included Kinlochaline Castle, valuable salmon-fishing on the River Aline, two coal mines at Inniebeg and Doirnamairt, and several potential lead mines. The black cattle reared on the estate was described as the best anywhere in the Highlands. The ground was so rich and so well looked after that it produced enough barley to keep a highly successful brewery going at Acharn.

In 1799 parts of the same estate, including a public house, croft and salmon fishing, were put up for sale for £6,576, while further south, Drimnin, Achleanan, Drumbuy and the Island of Oronsay were being advertised for £7,305.18/(shillings). Interestingly enough Drimnin Estate went on the market in 1943 for £6,000. It then consisted of 7,500 acres and included the mansion house, two secondary lodges, seven cottages and two sheep farms. Two lawyers bidding against each other raised the price to £8,750. The successful buyer was Miss Alice Horsman who had previously farmed on Mull.

In 1844 the estate of Achranich and Ullin was offered for sale. It contained about 9,000 acres and went for less than £12,000. Described as being one of the most desirable estates in the Highlands, it was advertised as having valuable minerals, coal, limestone, building stone, and thriving natural woods of oak, ash, birch and young larch plantations. For the sportsman there was grouse, black game, woodcock, partridge, roe, hares, other game and excellent fishing. For the farmer it was said that “turnips have been cultivated with great success – an evident improvement to the stock, which consists of Cheviot sheep and black cattle”. It is sad to see much of the Ullin property abandoned and derelict today.

One of the greatest bargains was Glencripesdale Estate on Loch Sunart-side which was offered for sale in 1925. For £5,000 the purchaser could enjoy 7,192 acres (producing annually 25 stags, 20 hinds, a 100 brace of grouse, woodcock and rabbits, sea trout and salmon), a 31-roomed mansion house, deer larder and skinning house, laundry, farmhouse, an assortment of farm buildings, two cottages, a large tidal dock, a stone jetty and a trout loch. An offer of £4,500 was received but the prospective buyer cried off when he realised how remote the property was having heard that the sellers had been marooned there for some time.

I received an email from an elderly gentleman on the island of Ulva not long ago asking me if

I would sponsor him to climb the equivalent height of Mt Everest for charity. As I felt it was lacking in originality, I didn’t respond very favourably so I don’t know whether he is still on the way up or down. Who I would have sponsored, had I been around at the time, was Mr J Wood, Tobermory’s postmaster, who in August 1913, for the sheer pleasure of it, swam the Sound of Mull. Mr Wood started from below Aros Park with the intention of landing near the chapel at Drimnin, but owning to the strong tidal currents he came ashore close to the Mains instead – a mile or so away to the north-east.

Apparently, Mr Wood used the trudgeon, breast and side strokes which was maintained with a very strong movement in the almost twomile journey. Considering Mr Wood had apparently not been in special training and would not have had a wetsuit, it says much for his great powers of physical endurance and perseverance in such a busy, jellyfish infested, sea lane.

A few miles along the coast from Drimnin there is a small settlement called Dorlin, where there was once a school. In 1943 the school teacher was a Mrs Calder, who came from Whitehills, Banffshire, on the Moray Firth coast to become an exile to relieve the shortage of teachers during the Second World War.

“At Dorlin,” said Mrs Calder, “I have just two pupils, the ten-year-old son and nine-year old daughter of a neighbouring shepherd. The dark winter days are lonely, I never see a soul from the time the children leave me in the afternoon until they return the next morning. We are great pals. I teach them in the schoolhouse. Their parents do not feel inclined to board them out and, as the nearest school to Dorlin is six miles away on the opposite side of Loch Sunart, the Argyll Education Committee must provide a teacher for this one family. I get plenty of coal but provisions only come once a week and the allowance for one person living alone in out of the way places like Dorlin takes some dividing over a week.”