Rumsdale - Part A
Before blogging the life stories of the children
of John and Christina McLeod raised at Rumsdale, I will describe a little bit
about Rumsdale and the life of a shepherd there.
In 2011 I was driven from Thurso to Rumsdale
by a good friend from Dunnet. Once off the sealed road and onto the farm tracks
of the Dalnawillan Estate it is definitely 4WD country maneuvering round potholes,
fords and round ditches. It beggars belief that a family could live forty years
in such a remote peaty, location, having to be totally self sufficient and
having to walk to get anywhere.
Ruins of the Rumsdale shepherd's house
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The ruined Shepherd’s House at Rumsdale lies on top
of the remains of an earlier longhouse, the footings of which can be seen at
the west end of the building. The ranging poles mark the corners of the
longhouse.
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In 1822, James Horne, the Langwell Laird,
bought the huge Rumsdale property in central Caithness, Scotland, to provide
summer grazing for his flocks. Horne’s idea was that the big mobs of older
Cheviot ewes from Langwell would be taken to Rumsdale to be fattened before
being driven to the autumn sales at Lairg. As well, the hoggets from Langwell
were to be wintered over at Rumsdale.
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Cheviot ewes and lambs at Badbea
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Horne evicted the Rumsdale tenants whose
families had been crofting on the fertile flats and meadows alongside the
Thurso River for generations.
Faint lines in
the grassland north west of the Rumsdale park show that rig cultivation took place
here before sheep farming displaced the pre-Improvement township.
A Good Shepherd - John McLeod
To run the big new sheep farms Horne needed
good shepherds. John McLeod was one of the few experienced Highlands’
shepherds, having worked at Ouagbeg and Ousdale. John must have been really
outstanding, as he was James Horne’s choice to go to Rumsdale and manage the
flocks at that big new farm.
John would have known it would be difficult
to manage large flocks of Cheviot sheep in an unfenced marshy landscape. But
with rivalry from southern shepherds, and evictions happening all over
Scotland, John took the opportunity and with Christina and baby Kitty went
inland to Rumsdale where they lived and worked for the next forty years.
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Highland Shepherd by Rosa Bonheur
1859
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On arrival at Rumsdale there may have been a
recently deserted house and some furniture for John & Christina to use. But
the McLeod family probably first lived at a small nearby settlement called
Aultnabreck. The baptism records of Donald and Mary two of the children of John
and Christina show they were born in Aultnabreck.
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Aultnabreck Ordnance 6 inch 1st Ed
Sheet XXVI 1843-1882
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Showing the Rumsdale Enclosure on an old map.
Rumsdale Ordnance 6 Inch 1st Ed 1843-1882 Sheet XXVI |
One of the first tasks for John would have
been to get to know the new Rumsdale ‘sheep-walk’, as these big farms were
called. The land was studded with lakes, swamps, marshes, bogs, moors, deep moss
and bounded by the river Thurso.
The weather!
Caithness has every type of weather, often
within a few minutes. The sea coast regulates the temperature so it does not
usually stay freezing for long. Summer is rarely hot. The winter days are short
and the summer days are long. Winter snow on the Rumsdale lands where snow
drifts would heap up on the hills and flats would have made life difficult for
a shepherd.
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Snow drifts block the railway line south of Altnabreac in 1895. I have included this just to
show how cold it could get in the winter at Altnabreac and nearby Rumsdale
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Massive Enclosure
The Hornes had a massive dry-stone dyke enclosure built at Rumsdale. It is not known when the dyke was built but it was probably near the beginning of the sheep farm venture. A dry-stone dyke is a wall that is built from stones without any mortar to bind them together. The wall is held up by a special construction method and by its own weight. Well made, it will last for centuries. This enclosure was built approximately 12 acres in size and is still in good condition. It can easily be seen on the satellite pictures for Google Earth. It would have been used to hold mobs of mustered sheep while they were being treated for diseases or being drafted and branded before being driven to market. The shepherd’s house was probably built during that time.
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Rumsdale
Stone Dyke and Shepherd’s House
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What did they live on?
It was common to pay shepherds ‘in kind’, letting them to have from forty to eighty of their own branded sheep. The value of these sheep was worked out between shepherds, with the owner taking the profit of his own flock.
Or
if he was paid a wage, John would have received from £30 to £33 per year.
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A
very old and damaged photo of the McLeod’s house at Rumsdale
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A
shepherd had a house provided, plus grass for a cow, two acres of ground to
grow potatoes, barley or turnips, and 65 stones of meal.
Braxy Sheep
‘A braxy victim when it has been skinned, well pressed with stones in a burn to extract the inflammation, and then salted, makes no contemptible hung mutton.’
1841 Census
What labouring help John had at first is not
known but the 1841 census shows two extra agricultural labourers living in the
house (Ag Lab). They probably slept on the kitchen floor as was the custom. The remains
of a shepherd’s bothy near the main Rumsdale house are still there. In the 1851
and 1861 census returns no extra farm labour is shown at Rumsdale.
Horne’s breeding ewes would have been kept at
Langwell for a few years. When they had dropped three or four lambs, the ewes
were probably sent across to Rumsdale to be fattened in preparation for being
driven south to the markets. The wether hoggets would likely have been sent to
Rumsdale between two and three years old then kept until about three and a half
years old before being sent to the markets.
By 1841 the Rumsdale property was carrying
1600 sheep in summer and about 500 over-winter wethers which could survive
tougher winter conditions than the ewes.
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Photo 2011. A few sheep are still grazed at Rumsdale
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