A History Project

Wandering across the countryside of West Ardnamurchan, we are constantly stumbling upon the remains of structures built by those who once lived here.  Personally, I am less interested in the monumental works, the cist and passage graves, castles and standing stones, than in the evidence of the lives of ordinary people.

One advantage of our location is that so much was built using the local stone, so houses, field walls, and byres which in other places would long since have disappeared, have a far better chance of being preserved.  The area is also fortunate that, considering how out-of-the-way it is, there are some good historical records, particularly maps, and it also has its own team of highly-skilled archaeologists, the Ardnamurchan Transitions Project, who come out each year in the summer and spend three weeks unearthing the peninsula's past.

All of which has led to a small project: to write what I can of the history of the villages of West Ardnamurchan.  I am no expert in this field, so I appeal to those of you who read what I write to add to it and, in particular, correct me when I am wrong.

One of the features of Google Blogger is that it offers 'Pages', a way of writing a record which does not, like the daily blog, disappear into the past.  A Page can be accessed via a link - so, for example, the description of West Ardnamurchan which is accessed via the word 'here' in the 'About Kilchoan' box at top right of A Kilchoan Diary, is a Page.  Pages can be edited, so the idea is that, as more information becomes available, the Page about each village can be updated and amended.

Much of the information comes from books, academic papers and the internet.  This can be used without infringing copyright.  However, some of the most interesting information lies in historic maps drawn by people like Bald and Roy[1], and, of course, by the Ordnance Survey.  To use these I needed permission from the National Library of Scotland, the National Records of Scotland, and the British Library.  I would like to thank those three public bodies for the very generous way they have allowed me to use small clippings from the maps they hold.

My first offering, before I try my hand at one of the villages, is an attempt to understand the recent general history of the villages of West Ardnamurchan over the last thousand years.  It's called Clachans, Clearances, and Crofts.

[1] William Roy's Military Map of Scotland, 1747-55, by kind permission of the British Library Board.  View the map on the National Library of Scotland's website here.