Portrait of a Crofting Township

The crofting system of land tenure is unique to the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. It developed during and after the eighteenth century, following the collapse of the clan system after the battle of Culloden. Prior to it, the clan held the land, and the clan chief or his local representative (the tacksman) distributed holdings as sub-tenancies to families as they needed them. As its ancestral land was lost to the clan, often by the chief either selling it or asserting proprietorial rights, crofts were allocated which offered hereditary tenure of smallholdings with access to communally held, but usually poorer land - the common grazings. The early crofters had no security of tenure, and the crofts ere deliberately small, obliging the tenant to find other work - usually for the landlord. Security finally came in 1886 with the Crofters Holdings Act.

This photograph of Ormsaigbeg, looking roughly west, gives a visual picture of a typical crofting township. Each croft is a strip of land, up to 100 metres wide, which runs from the shore line into the hill at the back. The average croft size is therefore about 2 hectares (5 acres). The better, arable land runs from the back of the shore to the line of the dwellings. The croft then continues to the right, up to the boundary of the common grazings, clearly visible to upper right. Each crofter has the right to graze a fixed number of animals on the common grazings.

The township's business is run democratically, with a clerk to keep records and enforce decisions. An example of a decision the township might take is to assign an 'apportionment', a part of the common grazing, to a crofter for his/her exclusive use. Most croft land is still held by a landowner, the crofters being tenants. Rents are controlled and remain very low: a typical Ormsaigbeg rent is £25pa. Today, more and more is owned freehold - though ownership does not remove the land from the crofting system. The crofter can transfer ('assign') his land to anyone, though it is usually a family member.

There are nearly 18,000 crofts in Scotland reportedly supporting a population of 33,000. The crofting system is overseen by the Crofting Commission but it faces a period of change with new laws recently passing through the Scottish Parliament. The Commission's website is here.