No 92. Droving Cattle to Carlisle. 27.04.2011

No 92. DROVING CATTLE to CARLISLE.

A Long Time Ago I wrote in The Orkney View about John Tait of Campton. He was one of my great grandfathers, born in Grotistoft in Caithness, a 93 acre farm in the Hill of Barrock. The two old houses and the steading there were cleared in 1843. They now lie deserted, roofless, the walls broken down, another fading monument to the past. He was the father of my grand uncle William Tait of the Diaries, and it is from William that I got the story of their far off days cattle droving from Orkney to Carlisle. That entailed boats. In his own words my great grandfather wrote :-

“Two weeks ago, after making my will in Kirkwall on the 18th of July, 1894, and prodded by my wife Jessie Steven, I wrote down a few words about my early years, dealing and shipping cattle from Orkney to Caithness, then droving them South to Thomas Morton in Brough near Carlisle. I was born in Grotistoft in 1822 so it is a long, long story.
My father James Tait, tenant of Inkstack after May 1843, my elder brother William and my brother-in-law John Tait married to my sister Janet, were staying the Census night of 1841 at the Ferry Inn in St Marys in Holm in Orkney belonging to a man called Annal. Two Swanson lads were with them and they were enumerated as cattle dealers. They were going round the Orkney farms to buy cattle where they could.
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William was born in 1809 in Dunnet and was followed by five daughters before four
more sons appeared. Never was that close to him, though, with that 13 year gap, and
he was grown up and had left school before I remember him. He was pretty much our
father's boy and he was away with our father most of the time I mind, dealing for cattle
and droving them south. He was the first of the Grotistoft Taits to move to Orkney. Our
father James and brother William often went to Orkney to buy cattle, usually in early June when the grass was growing and the cattle were picking up a bit after the hard wintering the Orkneymen gave them. The weather was also better for shipping by then and grazing them on the long way South. This dealing and droving went on for a lot of years and they must have done well enough at it, or at least “Got by”.
Anyway, William saw a chance in 1845 to establish himself better in Orkney when Quanterness came up for let. It had been the Town Moor of Kirkwall, just poor grass and a lot of heather. It had been sold in 1836 by the Town Council to Leut James Cumming, rtd on half pay. Cumming died a young man suddenly and accidentally in Quanterness House, newly built by him. So the farm was put up for let on an improving lease by his brother William Cumming, Commissariat General for the Forces and living in Regents Park in London. An “Improving Lease” was on utterly untouched land with no buildings. That had to be built by the incoming tenant. The first seven years of an “Improving Lease” were rent free, the next seven at a third of a rent, the final seven at two thirds. After 21 years the land was expected to bear full rental. And the Laird had a farm.
They used to load the Mainland cattle on Orkney boats on the Ayre at Skaildaquoy Point, holding twelve cattle each, running the boats aground about the last of the ebb tide, a gey coorse loading job needing strong men. The boats were pretty dour to sail against the wind with a dozen cattle aboard, but the Orkneymen knew their tides.
The year after the Census of 1841 when I was 19 year old I went with them to Orkney dealing, and most of the time I was in the North Isles. I got on better with the North Isles men, some of the Mainland men were pretty sharp.
We made a bargain where we could and the terms were that the North Isles men had to take their cattle within a certain ten days to Camess near Kirkwall which was rough grazing ground at that time and part of Kirkwall Commons. They were herded and grazed there until it was time to load for Caithness.
The North Isles men got paid for their cattle when they delivered them to Carness and some of their boats stayed on to get the hire from us to take the beasts over the Firth. I think at that time they got about £4 for a good beast, less for a smaller one.
We had lads out of Kirkwall to herd the cattle on Carness and had many a good laugh with them. One of the biggest lots we had was about 216 cattle and we hired eighteen boats to carry them at 12 cattle each, mostly North Isles boats. They loaded inside the Bay of Work, usually on the beach.
There were no harbours then along the coast, all we needed was a sandy or gravelly beach to run the boats ashore. We then tied a rope to the top of the mast and pulled the boats over on their side and the cattle literally walked on or off. All that was needed was some strong men who knew the sea. When loaded the boats floated off on the rising flood tide and got into the east going flood through the String which took them round Mull Head in Deerness in no time at all, and then set southerly off Copinsay and ran through Lamb Sound at St Mary’s in Holm into Scapa Flow, and then to Caithness if the weather held. Otherwise they could go into St Margarets in South Ronaldshay into Longhope in Hoy to shelter for a while and wait for better weather.
About 2,000 cattle a year went out of Orkney that way in my early days but now with steam navigation most of them are going South by steamer to Aberdeen and some to Leith. A lot of farmers liked to get a price for their beasts on the farm, especially in the North Isles. We took the cattle to Grotistoft to rest up after the crossing and shoe their hooves with iron plates for the long walk South. At times we had other grazing in Caithness if we had a lot of cattle to hold because Grotistoft was only ninety acres. After we went to Inkstack in 1843 we did less dealing.
Carlisle was about 400 miles to drove the cattle to Morton and we used to take about four weeks to move 250 cattle south. We could hurry them if need be but they did not travel so well. Mostly we stayed overnight in bothies or at inns on the way, but sometimes we slept rough with the cattle. It was a tough life.
My father thought Morton had consumption as he died early at the age of fifty-two. Morton knew a man called John Tate in Carlisle who had been a Topsman or Conductor of Drifts of cattle in his early days but I doubt if there was any connection.
Morton came from Ayrshire originally though around Carlisle.there were some Taits/Tates. Most of the Orkney cattle were grazed by Morton at Brough on the saltings of the Solway. Then they were driven across the Pennines into Yorkshire and even into East Anglia to be winter finished on better land. Leicestershire was also a good market in summer, rich grazing farms.
The Orkney cattle fattened very easily but they were poor sorts when I first saw them. They were of the old native black breed and I have seen first the Argyle or Highland coming in and then the Shorthorn and now the Aberdeen Angus. No doubt in another hundred years there will be other breeds coming into Orkney but the Aberdeen-Angus crosses I see now are very good cattle, no comparison at all with the little black runts I used to drove. Come to that the farming has changed as well beyond recognition. So that was how I spent my early days, brought up and farming in Caithness, dealing in Orkney for cattle, taking them across the Pentland Firth in small open boats of about twenty-four feet keel with one mast and a big lug sail and six oars when we needed them to get off or on the beach, then droving the cattle 400 miles to Carlisle. Later we did not go so far, mostly to Falkirk as the English buyers came north to meet us. I think I could walk that old road in my sleep.”

John Tait died at Campston, St Andrews, Orkney on 21st November, 1901, aged 79. .