Gairloch in North-West Ross-Shire: Its Records, Traditions, Inhabitants, and Natural History, with a Guide to Gairloch and Loch Maree, and a Map and IllustrationsDixon, John H. (John Henry)
History
Gairloch in North-West Ross-Shire: Its Records, Traditions, Inhabitants, and Natural History, with a Guide to Gairloch and Loch Maree, and a Map and Illustrations
Dixon, John H. (John Henry)
Gairloch (Scotland) -- Guidebooks; Gairloch (Scotland) -- History; Ross and Cromarty (Scotland) -- History
I am told an ancient burial-place was discovered some years ago at
Bruachaig, near Kenlochewe, where the bodies had been buried in a
doubled-up position, the well-known custom in remote times. I have
visited another spot, in a glen among the mountains, traditionally
described as a burial-place of giants; it may have been so, but the
stones (which indeed are mostly flat) look more as if they had been
deposited naturally than by human agency.
Of remains of old buildings, besides those already described, there are
few of any antiquarian interest in Gairloch:--
1. Perhaps the oldest remains of these other buildings are the few
stones and the mound on Isle Maree, supposed to represent the cell of St
Maelrubha and the tower to which the Norwegian prince brought his bride
(Part I., chap. ii.).
2. On Eilean Ruaridh Beag are the remains of the residence of John Roy
Mackenzie, fourth laird of Gairloch, who lived here in the latter part
of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth. It is
said that long before that time Ruaridh M'Leod, who gave his name to the
island, resided here, possibly in the same house, or in one on the same
site. This small island almost adjoins Eilean Ruaridh Mhor on its south
side. The buildings present no architectural features, and only ruinous
dry-stone walls remain; there are also some half-wild garden fruit-trees
on the island. I remember about the year 1868 seeing a small cannon ball
sticking in one of the walls, and I am told that bullets have often been
found in the moss on this island. Perhaps the cannon ball and the
bullets had been there since the fight when Ruaridh M'Leod was driven
from the island. The remains of John Roy's house confirm Captain Burt's
accounts of the "huts" in which the Highland lairds of his day (early in
the eighteenth century) resided; the chiefs seem to have been generally
little better lodged than their clansmen.
3. On Eilean Suainne were the houses or huts where the sons of John
Glassich Mackenzie, the second laird of Gairloch, dwelt in the sixteenth
century, and where Alastair Breac, the fifth laird of Gairloch, resided
from about 1628 to 1638. There are very slight, if any, remains of these
dwellings.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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