Lochaber Shealings

[Thomas Cameron]

Chris (and any others with suggestions),

I've been doing some pretty detailed work for Virtual Lochaber 2.0, dealing with old shealings throughout Lochaber. The 1772 Lochiel Estate report details them, and lists boundaries, but I'm finding little or no points of reference on the modern ordnance survey maps. Do you have any suggestions?

I understand that the shealings were fairly wide spans of land, and that most (but not all) were only populated in the summer months, but would like to represent that on VL 2.0, since they were so significant to the lives of our collective ancestors. The new version (hopefully ready well before the 2009 Gathering) will have (among other major additions) a 200+ km southern addition, bringing the southern edge of mapping down past Ballachulish and including Loch Leven.

Thanks!

[ChrisDoak]

Hi Tom,

I agree with you that it is difficult to establish the exact location of sheallings(various spellings) from modern maps.The reason,I think is threefold:

1.As high-hill pasture with no permanent habitations,or buildings of any nature,the names would not have been recorded by the cartographers of the first Ordnance Survey maps,just as they would not have recorded the names of individual fields at lower levels.

2.The shealling system was largely redundant by the mid 19th century,largely through eviction and clearance,when the Ordnance Survey were preparing their maps.It is likely as well,that local knowlege of their existance and location,might have then been very sketchy.

3.The two principal landowners in Lochaber were Cameron of Lochiel,and the Duke of Gordon.As the Lochiel Estate never sold off any of their farms till the 20th century,there would be no earlier conveyancing documents or registers to identify individual tracts of land used for sheallings.

However,the Duke of Gordon was forced to sell his Lochaber Estate in the 1830s for bankruptcy reasons,and it is likely that his sheallings would be identified in transferral documents to the new owners.That still gives you the same problem,I suppose,unless you can find maps from that time which do identify exactly where the sheallings were located - I have seen descriptions,but there is always guesswork involved in working out the exact boundaries(often there weren't any),let alone the approximate locations.I do know,for instance,that some of the sheallings for many of the farms on the Gordon Estate were not physically attached to the farms,but were many miles away.

Regards,Chris.

[Thomas Cameron]

Chris,

Thanks for the thorough reponse. It seems that we're pretty much in complete agreement here - it's a difficult task. The 1772 report does occasionally reference some shealing residences (used year-round) but only in a few instances. The modern ordnance maps do show a few sites with "old shealings," but as they say "putting two and two together" is easier said than done. My thought is that unless a thorough eighteenth century map surfaces, we're into "best guess" territory here, something I'm not comfortable with. At the very least the sites will be documented in VL 2.0's reference guide but simply not identified on the map.

[Alans]

Its great to see both of you still so active on the site. I have been snowed under this year with teaching at a new school and part time study. There is a book edited by Tom Devine-cant recall its exact title, but one of the contributors on the clearances lists the raw economic forces that changed the Highland pastoral and agricultural system forever.
Croftimg which is now regarded as "traditional" really assumed its current shape after the Napier Commission and subsequent legislation in the late C19th.
The seasonal factors behind the Shieling system would not have saved it, in my view, once the labour force left the land from the late C18th onwards.
The spread of the Industrial revolution to Scotland at the same time must also have been a "natural" influence in the decline of this traditional system of land use.

Dias Mhuire duit a Thammais mor an Toiseach na Camshronaich agus Chris an Seannachie mor!!