Gairloch In North-West Ross-Shire Part 9

In 1803 the old glebe of Clive was exchanged by the presbytery for a portion of the lands of Miole at Strath of Gairloch, and a new manse was erected at once. This is the present manse of Gairloch; it was added to in 1823, when Hugh Miller, then a mason, took part in the work. His experience in Gairloch at that time is recorded in "My Schools and Schoolmasters."

The present manse of Poolewe was built in 1828.

The old Free church at Gairloch, and the Free manse there, were erected shortly after the Disruption in 1843. The church having become unsafe was pulled down in 1880, and the present handsome building erected on the same site.

The Free church and manse at Aultbea were also erected soon after the Disruption. The Free Church has also mission churches or meeting-houses at Poolewe, Opinan, and Kenlochewe in Gairloch parish. The first minister of the Gairloch Free church was the Rev. Duncan Matheson, who was succeeded by the Rev. John Baillie, the present minister. The first minister of the Aultbea Free church was the Rev. James n.o.ble; to him succeeded the Rev. William Rose; after whose death the Rev. Ronald Dingwall, the present minister, was appointed.

Chapter XVII.

ANCIENT GAIRLOCH IRONWORKS.

Many visitors to Gairloch, and not a few of the inhabitants, will learn with astonishment that the manufacture of iron was carried on in the parish from remote times, and that there are still abundant remains to testify to the magnitude and importance of the industry. There are many places in this wild and picturesque Highland district where are to be seen to this day large heaps of slag and dross, and remains of blast-furnaces or bloomeries; whilst many acres of arable ground, as well as of uncultivated moorland, are still thickly strewn with fragments of charcoal and of several kinds of iron ore.

The remains of ironworks examined in Gairloch may be roughly divided into two cla.s.ses, viz:--(1) The ancient ironworks, of which there are no historical records extant; and (2) The historic ironworks of Loch Maree.

The ancient ironworks or bloomeries are the subject of our present chapter. Some of them appear, as we should expect, to belong to a later period than others, but nothing can be said with precision about the date of any of them. They will be described in Part I., chap. xx.

There are some interesting notes on the subject of ancient Highland ironworks in the curious book ent.i.tled "Remarks on Dr Samuel Johnson's Journey to the Hebrides, by the Rev. Donald M'Nicol, A.M.," published in 1779, and extracted in Appendix G. Mr M'Nicol does not give his authorities, but there is ample ocular demonstration of the truth of his statement, that "the smelting and working of iron was well understood and constantly practised over all the Highlands and Islands for time immemorial." Other writers have expressed the opinion, that iron was made throughout Great Britain long before the Roman invasion.

Perhaps a coin now in my possession, which was found some years ago in a field on the bank of the river Went in Yorkshire, near large quant.i.ties of ancient heavy iron slag, may be taken as giving some clue to the date of the older ironworks. It is an ancient British coin of the type of the quarter stater of Philip II. of Macedon. The British coinage is supposed to have been in existence at least as far back as 150 B.C., and this is one of the early types.

The querns frequently found in all parts of the Highlands shew that the ancient inhabitants grew some corn,--that they had some acquaintance with "the staff of life." It seems a reasonable inference, that they used iron implements for tilling their lands and securing their crops.

It is certain that some iron weapons, tools, and implements, besides those employed in agriculture, were in use in the Highlands in those old days. An iron axe-head, of the shape of the bronze celt figured among our ill.u.s.trations, and with the aperture for the handle similarly in a line with its axis instead of at right angles to it, was found in 1885 in the garden at Inveran; its remains are much eaten by rust, but there is enough to shew that this iron axe is of an old type. It may be objected, that if iron implements for peace or war were extensively used in ancient days there would be more relics of them. The obvious reply to such an objection is, that iron is so liable to oxidation that most of the smaller iron articles of ancient times must have perished from that cause. Many of the small ma.s.ses of rust-cemented gravel and earth, found everywhere, may have originally had for their nucleus an ancient iron implement, or a fragment of one. If it be allowed that the Picts or other early inhabitants of the north used iron tools and weapons, the question at once arises,--Where and how did they procure them? The remains of the ancient cla.s.s of ironworks supply the answer. Those so-called savages well knew where to procure iron, and how to fabricate from it the articles they required,--another proof that the Picts were by no means the uncivilised barbarians that some people suppose.

The ancient ironworks of Gairloch were probably not more numerous than those of some other parts of the Highlands and Islands. There is little doubt but that many of the remains, both in Gairloch and elsewhere, have been obliterated by the husbandman, or concealed by overgrowth of heather and other plants. In many places throughout Sutherlandshire, Ross-shire, and Inverness-shire, as well as in other Scottish counties, there are large quant.i.ties of iron slag. The Inverness Scientific Society have examined remains of ancient iron-smelting near Alness in Easter Ross. The Rev. Dr Joa.s.s, of Golspie, and Mr D. William Kemp, of Trinity, have to a certain extent investigated some Sutherlandshire remains. There are also quant.i.ties of slag on the Braemore estate, on the sh.o.r.es of Loch Rosque between Achnasheen and the eastern boundary of Gairloch parish (Part IV., chap, iii.), and in many other parts of Wester Ross, as well as in the island of Soa off the west coast of Skye, and many other places.

At the iron-smelting works near Alness a native hemat.i.te iron ore was used, as well as what is termed bog iron. Bog iron is also believed to have been used at a bloomery near Golspie, Sutherlandshire. This bog iron appears to have been commonly employed by the ancient ironworkers; it was extracted by the action of water from ferruginous rocks and strata, and was acc.u.mulated at the bases of peat bogs. In process of time granular ma.s.ses of oxides of iron were thus formed, sometimes covering a considerable area. Within the parish of Gairloch there are still quant.i.ties of bog iron to be seen, apparently formed exactly in the manner described. The localities will be stated in Part I., chap.

xix. No bog iron has been found in proximity to any of the remains of ironworks; probably the iron-smelters consumed all that was conveniently near the scenes of their operations. In the neighbourhood of all the remains of ironworks in Gairloch are found ferruginous rocks and shales, or rust-coloured earths. The best samples of these rocks have on a.n.a.lysis yielded but eight per cent. of metallic iron, and the rust-coloured earths are by no means rich in the metal. But there can be no doubt that bog iron was formerly present in the vicinity of these rocks, shales, and earths; and the a.n.a.lyses of the ancient iron slags prove to demonstration that such bog iron was the ore used at the ancient bloomeries.

Mr W. Ivison Macadam, a.n.a.lytical chemist of Edinburgh, is hopeful that the a.n.a.lyses he has undertaken may in course of time throw more light on the methods and productions of the ancient ironworkers. It is not probable that we shall ever know much of their history. According to the Rev. Donald M'Nicol they made iron "in the blomary way, that is by laying it under the hammers in order to make it malleable, with the same heat that melted it in the furnace." In the present day the processes of smelting iron and of producing malleable iron are separate and distinct; these ancient artisans probably combined the two. The slags produced at their furnaces contained a large proportion of metallic iron. Mr Macadam has found fully fifty per cent. of iron in most of the samples of ancient Gairloch slags he has a.n.a.lysed, and at some modern ironworks quant.i.ties of ancient slag have actually been found worth resmelting.

The wasteful richness of the old slags can be easily accounted for; the ancient methods of smelting were comparatively imperfect, labour was cheap, the iron used cost nothing, and the forests whence was derived the charcoal for smelting it were apparently inexhaustible, whilst the business was no doubt carried on more for the supply of local and immediate wants than as a branch of commerce. If the ironworkers could obtain by their primitive processes enough iron to supply their own requirements, they would naturally be careless of the amount of metal wasted.

The fuel universally used for iron-smelting, until far into the eighteenth century, was wood-charcoal, and even to the middle of the nineteenth century it was still employed at two blast-furnaces in Scotland. Every part of the Highlands, not excepting the parish of Gairloch, was clothed with dense forests of fine timber. Far up the mountain slopes, and down to the rocky sh.o.r.es of the sea, the fir, oak, and birch flourished in wonderful and beautiful profusion. There is no poetic license, no picturesque exaggeration in this statement.

Everywhere the relics of trees are to be seen to this day, and much of the timber used by Gairloch crofters in roofing their dwellings and for other purposes consists of branches found underground. The disappearance of the great Caledonian forest has been accounted for in several ways; some have conjectured that a vast conflagration or series of conflagrations destroyed it; others think that its destruction was more gradual, and resulted from the labours of the charcoal burners and similar doings. In Gairloch there are charred stumps still to be seen preserved in peat bogs, that support the conflagration theory; but there is also widespread evidence of extensive charcoal burnings, so that there must be some truth in both these modes of accounting for the destruction of the woods. Some localities of charcoal burnings will be mentioned in Part I., chap. xx.

[Ill.u.s.tration: McLAGAN & c.u.mMING, LITH, EDINR

SIR GEORGE HAY OF MEGGINISH, KNIGHT, THE IRONFOUNDER OF LOCH MAREE, FROM A PORTRAIT BY FERDINAND, IN DUPPLIN CASTLE.]

All the ancient Gairloch ironworks are in the vicinity of burns. This fact raises a strong inference that the older ironworkers, like their historic successors, utilised the water-power afforded by adjoining streams for the purpose of working machinery. The Rev. D. M'Nicol's statement, already quoted, that hammers were used to produce malleable iron confirms the inference; and the remains of dams or weirs, and other expedients for augmenting the water-power, convert the conjecture into an established fact. It appears certain, then, that heavy hammers worked by machinery, with water for the motive power, were used in remote times,--another testimony to the ingenuity and mechanical skill of the ancient inhabitants of the Highlands. The tuyere for a furnace-blast found at Fasagh (_see ill.u.s.tration_) is another evidence of that skill.

The reader must please remember that the ancient ironworks referred to in this chapter are quite distinct from the historic series to which our next is devoted.

Chapter XVIII.

THE HISTORIC IRONWORKS OF LOCH MAREE.

To the lonely and romantic sh.o.r.es of the queen of Highland lochs belongs the curiously incongruous distinction of having been the scene where the new departure in iron-smelting processes, which commenced the present series of Scottish ironworks, was inaugurated. How wonderful it seems, that the great iron industry of Scotland, which to this day enriches so many families and employs so many thousands of workmen, should have sprung from this sequestered region! The claim to the distinction is based on the facts, that up to the present time no records of any earlier manufacture of iron have been discovered, and that the iron industry established here early in the seventeenth century became, as we shall shew, of such national importance as to call for special legislation. It appears to have been in 1607 that Sir George Hay commenced ironworks at Letterewe, on Loch Maree, which were continued for at least sixty years. It is true that in 1612 a license previously granted by the king to "Archibald Prymroise, clerk of his maiesties mynis, his airis and a.s.signais quhatsomeuir ffor making of yrne within the boundis of the schirefdome of perth," was ratified by Parliament, but the date of the license is not given, and we hear no more of these Perthshire ironworks.

It was not until the eighteenth century that the seed sown by Sir George germinated, and the iron industry began to spread in Scotland.

The iron furnaces in Glengarry, referred to by Captain Burt, are said to have been established by a Liverpool company, who bought the Glengarry woods about 1730.

The iron-smelting works at Abernethy, Strathspey, were commenced in 1732 by the York Buildings Company. This company was formed in 1675 to erect waterworks on the grounds of York House in the Strand, London, and was incorporated in 1691 as "The Governor and Company of Undertakers for raising the Thames water in York Buildings." The operations of the company have been described by Mr David Murray, M.A., F.S.A. Scot., in an able pamphlet ent.i.tled "The York Buildings Company: A Chapter in Scotch History." The company raised at the time of its incorporation the then immense capital of 1,259,575, and conducted not only the original waterworks, but also enormous speculations in forfeited estates in Scotland; the company also carried on coal, lead, and iron mines, the manufacture of iron and gla.s.s, and extensive dealings in timber from the Strathspey forests. Their agents and workmen in Strathspey are described in the Old Statistical Account as "the most profuse and profligate set that were ever heard of in this country. Their extravagances of every kind ruined themselves and corrupted others." Their ironworks were abandoned at the end of two years, _i.e._ in 1734, or, according to the Old Statistical Account, in 1737. They made "Glengarry" and "Strathdoun"

pigs, and had four furnaces for making bar iron. The corporation of the York Buildings Company was dissolved in 1829.

The Loch Etive side, or Bonawe, ironworks, were commenced by an Irish company about 1730. They rented the woods of Glenkingla.s.s, and made charcoal, with which they smelted imported iron ore. That company existed till about 1750. In 1753 an English company, consisting of three Lancashire men and one Westmoreland man, took leases, which ran for one hundred and ten years, and these were renewed in 1863 to the then manager of the company for twenty-one years, expiring as lately as 1884.

By the courtesy of Mr Hosack, of Oban, I have seen duplicates of the leases under which the undertaking was carried on. The works comprised extensive charcoal burnings and the blast-furnace at Bonawe; they were discontinued before 1884.

Other important works of a similar character were afterwards established by the Argyle Furnace Company, and by the Lorn Company, at Inverary.

In a work on "The Manufacture of Iron in Great Britain," by Mr George Wilkie, a.s.soc. Inst. C.E., published in 1857, it is stated that the Carron works were established in 1760 by Dr Roebuck of Sheffield and other gentlemen; that in 1779 two brothers of the name of Wilson, merchants in London, established the Wilsonton ironworks in Lanarkshire; that in 1788 the Clyde ironworks were established in the neighbourhood of Glasgow, and that in that year there were only eight pig-iron furnaces in Scotland, of which four were at Carron, two at Wilsonton, one at "Bunawe in Lorn," and one at "Goatfield in Arran," the two latter being worked with wood charcoal for fuel. The furnace at Bunawe is that already noticed as on Loch Etive side. Of the alleged furnace at "Goatfield in Arran" there are no records or remains to be found in Arran to-day. Probably Goatfield was in Argyleshire.

But we need not here further trace the wonderful growth of the still existing series of Scottish ironworks. To establish our claim to precedence, it will suffice to shew that the furnaces on Loch Maree were commenced by Sir George Hay more than a century earlier than any of those just named.

Pennant, in his tour of 1772 (Appendix B), mentions the time of the Queen Regent as the period when Sir George Hay was head of a company who carried on an iron furnace near Poolewe; this statement is given on the authority of the Rev. John Dounie, minister of Gairloch. The regency of Mary of Guise extended from 1542 to 1560; so that the historical commencement of the ironworks on Loch Maree might date as far back as the middle of the sixteenth century. But Sir George Hay lived at a later date, and Mr Dounie must have been inaccurate in this respect.

From Donald Gregory's history of the Western Highlands, Alexander Mackenzie's history of the Mackenzies, and several old MSS., including the genealogy of the MacRaes (Appendix A), we glean the following facts:--

In 1598 a party of gentlemen, known as the "Fife Adventurers," obtained a grant from the crown of the island of the Lews, and took steps to plant a colony there. Mackenzie of Kintail and the M'Leods of the Lews, ceasing for the time their own feuds, combined to oust the Fife Adventurers. In 1607 the king granted the Lews to Lord Balmerino (Secretary of Scotland and Lord-President of the Session), Sir George Hay, and Sir James Spens of Wormistoun (one of the original "Fife Adventurers"), who in 1608 renewed the attempt to colonize the Lews, but without success. In 1609 Lord Balmerino was convicted of high treason and executed, thus forfeiting his share. Sir George Hay and Sir James Spens about that time sent an expedition to the Lews, but Neil M'Leod, secretly backed by Mackenzie of Kintail, opposed the intending colonists, who were driven from the island. Mackenzie was raised to the peerage in the same year with the t.i.tle of Lord Mackenzie of Kintail, after he had induced Sir George Hay and Sir James Spens to give up their scheme and transfer their rights in the Lews to himself. Lord Mackenzie, in part payment, gave them the woods of Letterewe for iron-smelting; the arrangement was concluded in 1610, and Lord Mackenzie then obtained a fresh grant to himself from the crown.

But we can carry back the history of the Letterewe ironworks to a slightly earlier date still.

The Rev. Farquhar MacRae was appointed vicar or minister of Gairloch by Bishop Leslie of Ross in 1608, in order that he might "serve the colony of English which Sir George Hay kept at Letterewe." Mr MacRae continued his work in Gairloch parish till 1618, and his son informs us, in the "Genealogical Account" (Appendix A), that on his death in 1662 Mr MacRae "had lived fifty-four years in the ministry, ten of which at Gairloch."

Thus it is evident that he was ordained vicar of Gairloch in 1608. This was two years before Sir George Hay acquired the woods of Letterewe from Lord Mackenzie, but the later date of his acquisition of those woods does not preclude the possibility of Sir George having already commenced the manufacture of iron there, perhaps in a tentative manner. It will be noticed that the Genealogical Account of the MacRaes speaks of Sir George Hay's undertaking at Letterewe as a going concern when Mr MacRae was sent in 1608 to minister to the ironworkers. It seems almost certain, therefore, that it had begun in 1607, for we cannot but a.s.sume that the appointment of Mr MacRae to Gairloch was made to supply a want that must have taken at least a year to develop. The conclusion that Sir George Hay began the Letterewe ironworks in 1607, receives some confirmation from the fact that the grant of the Lews to him and his colleagues took place in the same year. The two matters were very probably connected. Either Sir George was led to enter into the Lews adventure from his being located at Letterewe, so near to Poolewe, the port for the Lews, or--which is more probable--the advantages of Letterewe attracted his attention when at Poolewe planning the subjugation of the Lews. The date (27th January 1609) of the act forbidding the making of iron with wood (Appendix G) is not inconsistent with the commencement of the ironworks in 1607. a.s.suming that the prohibition was (as seems likely) aimed at the Letterewe ironworks, it is reasonable enough to suppose that they must have been begun in 1607, so as to have attained sufficient importance to excite the alarm of the legislature in January 1609. News from the Highlands took a long time to travel so far as Edinburgh in those days.

We hear nothing more of Sir James Spens in connection with the ironworks.

Sir George Hay's history is remarkable. He was the second son of Peter Hay of Melginche, and was born in 1572. He completed his education at the Scots College at Douay in France. He was introduced at court about 1596, and seems at once to have attracted the attention of James VI., who appointed him one of the gentlemen of the bedchamber, and in 1598 gave him the Carthusian priory or charter-house at Perth and the ecclesiastical lands of Errol, with a seat in Parliament as a peer. But he declined the peerage, was knighted instead, and subsequently adopted the profession of the law, in which he attained to great distinction. He seems to have been a favourite with the king, whom he defended when in 1600 the Earl of Gowrie was killed in his treasonable attempt on his majesty's life. a.s.sisted by the favour of the crown, Sir George acquired large territories both in the Highlands and Lowlands. (See extract from "Douglas's Peerage," Appendix G.) But some think that at the time he settled at Letterewe he was under a cloud. Political troubles had arisen; one of his partners, Lord Balmerino, had been convicted of high treason and executed; so that the statement that Sir George had chosen the remote Letterewe "for the sake of quiet in those turbulent times"

appears reasonable enough. The fact that he occupied the leisure of his enforced retirement in establishing and improving iron-smelting, is a standing testimony to the energy of this remarkable man. He is said to have resided some years at Letterewe, or at least to have made his headquarters there. No doubt Lord Mackenzie would provide the best habitation he could for the learned and enterprising lessee of his woods. Probably Sir George lived in an old house on the site of the present Letterewe House.

The only Gairloch iron-furnaces which we can be sure were carried on by Sir George Hay were those at Letterewe, Talladale, and the Red Smiddy near Poolewe. (They will be described in Part I., chap. xx.). The vast woods of Letterewe were undoubtedly the prime motive that led Sir George to start the ironworks there. They must have been very extensive, for it is the opinion of those who should know, that each furnace would annually use as carbonised fuel the product of one hundred and twenty acres of wood. The works Sir George conducted seem to have combined two cla.s.ses of industry,--(1) The manufacture of wrought-iron, the ore being smelted with charcoal into a ma.s.s of metal called a bloom, which was hammered whilst yet hot into bars of wrought iron, or into various articles used in the arts of peace or war; (2) The manufacture of pig-iron and articles of cast-iron, the metal being poured into moulds.

The Letterfearn MS. says, that at Letterewe "Sir George Hay kept a colony and manufactory of Englishmen making iron and casting great guns, untill the wood of it was spent and the lease of it expired."

The Genealogical Account of the MacRaes tells of "the colony of English which Sir George Hay of Airdry kept at Letterewe, making iron and casting cannon."

The Bennetsfield MS. mentions the grant of the "lease of the woods of Letterewe, where there was an iron mine, which they wrought by English miners, casting guns and other implements, till the fuel was exhausted and their lease expired."

Pennant notes in his Tour (Appendix B), that the Rev. John Dounie had seen the back of a grate marked "S. G. Hay," or Sir George Hay. Those acquainted with old inscriptions tell us that the initial S was a usual abbreviation for the t.i.tle "Sir."