No 93. Brough Crossing.

A long time ago, but yesterday too. Rain On My Window (Tears in My Eyes) will be an ongoing tale of my early memories of life shared by my younger brother David on Whitehall Farm in Stronsay, Orkney, of our childhood on a working farm in the 1930s before we lost our innocence.


No 93. The Pentland Firth. Edited from first copy //

With the Pentland Firth so much in the news at present as the answer to all our future power problems, I thought it time to take a look at the waters over which my g.g.grand father JamesTait, who died in Inkstack in 1854, had taken his cattle. So I got a copy of the 13 hourly tide charts either side of High Water Dover [HWD]. The Pentland Firth was much more complex than I thought, no way can I do justice to the many tides and swirls and eddies and counter flows in a wee article. But from family connection I took a look.

. The story Wm Tait told of his grand father James Tait above taking 18 boats with 216 cattle across the Pentland stays with me. Scapa Flow was easy, reasonably sheltered water, but setting off round Cantick Head into the Pentland Firth the weather broke so they turned back and went into the old Viking Anchorage of Long Hope. There they off loaded the cattle and waited a week. Off again, but once more the weather broke. Nine boats kept going, nine turned back to Long Hope for a further week before final crossing.

With the tide charts before me I noted that with the last three hours of the east going flood tide there is a west going eddy close in to the cliffs of Hoy from Cantick Head to Tor Ness. This strengthened westwards on the turn of the tide at the beginning of the ebb. Ride that eddy and with a good sailing wind the boats would have been well off Tor Ness long before the tide turned. They would have headed out anyway into the last of the flood tide and the first of the ebb and be across the narrow seven miles between Tor Ness and Dunnet Head very quickly. These boats could sail well with the right wind. The “birlin” trading vessel of the Hebrides or the “knarr” of the Vikings could do up to nine knots if the wind was right, approximately ten miles an hour Good boats.

At the start of the west going ebb tide the Merry Men of Mey begin their dance just off St John’s Point, close in at first. As the ebb gathers strength the Merry Men reach further across towards Tor Ness, but ease off next St John’s Head as the ebb continues. By the two hours at the last of the ebb the sea off St John’s Point is quite quiet, though the Merry Men are still dancing off Tor Noss. To be avoided.

I thought then of all the places where James Tait might have landed on the rocky Caithness shore. Not an easy coast for sailing boats with no engines. The phrase “at the mercy of wind and tide” had real meaning for a sailor.

With 12 cattle to a boat a safe and secure landing place was essential. Dunnet Head provided a choice. If the wind got up in strength, or changed direction, they could alter course to go either side of Dunnet Head.
. If a strong easterly was blowing, a good wind for crossing from Hoy but blowing right into Brough Bay, the boats could go west of Dunnet Head and into the beach inside Dwarwick Head below Dunnet. There the sand and the rocky shore meet just along from the present caravan park. They could beach their boats there and off load the cattle. If the wind was westerly, and that is a direction from where the wind can blow up quite quckly, the boats could go into the lee of the east side of Dunnet Head and slip quietly and easily into the shelter of Brough Bay. It was the preferred landing place anyway, a shorter voyage. It was from Brough that one of my great grandfathers John Tait emigrated from Inkstack to Orkney, also three brothers and a sister. Ham was also well used for Orkney traffic, mostly grain and horses but passengers too.

There were no harbours as now we know them in Caithness at that time. At Scrabster ships lay suspended between their anchors and the four rings attached to the rock face below the Lighthouse. They were loaded from the shore by many small boats. The old map of 1841 of Thurso Bay and Scrabster, of which I got a copy from the Records Office in Edinburgh and which is now in the Harbour Masters Office, showed no pier at Scrabster until after that date, just a small neb into the water suitable enough for small boats. It also showed four ships at anchor and attached to the rings.

Thurso Rivermouth was tidal, impossible at low ebb. Castlehill Harbour, built by James Traill circa 1828, was just that, a harbour to load and export James Traill’s flagstones. It was well built, making use of a natural verticle rock face on the west side, easy to see when the tide is out. Dwarwick Pier was not bult till the 1890s.

Small slipways were sanctioned by James Traill in 1831 to be built if need be by the Comissioners of Northern Lighthouses at the harbours of Brough and Ham for the building of Dunnet Head Lighthouse by Robert Stevenson in 1832. Traill stipulated and reserved the continued use of any piers so built for tne use of his tenants. Huna and Sannick Bay were good landings, Huna particularly for Stroma cattle. Sannick was well known as a landing for South Ronaldsay cattle, the old pens still to be seen there. The state of the tide had much to do as to when and where to land at Sannick, the Bores of Duncansby being deadly when running.
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At Staxigoe they had rings either side of the harbour to suspend ships between them. Most of the export of grain from Caithness was from Staxigoe.
As Aneas Bayne wrote in 1734, “The Trade of export of the Shire of Caithness consists mostly in Corns, wherof they export in any good year 16,000 Bolls, at the Ports of Thurso, viz:- Scrabster Road, a small way West of the Town , and at the River Mouth, and at Staxigoe Harbour near the Town of Wick, half meal, half bear.”


Even before the ebb tide changes to flood there is an easterly eddy coming close in round Dunnet Head, the first of the flood tide. This strengthens on the early flood. So wind permitting east of and inside Dunnet Head was their first choice. A North easterly wind, the Helm Wind of the Vikings, rarely gets up without notice as a westerly can though it can be a strong steady wind. In the interests of safety it gave James Tait a wonderful choice to land his precious cargo.

The essence of cattle transport was to find a beach of sand or shingle on which to run the boats, off loading by simply laying the boat over on its side and walking the cattle off. Or jump maybe, but it would be a low jump. Built piers were of no value for loading cattle, nor needed. James Tait’s main cattle landing beach was Brough, well sheltered from most airts of wind, a good shore on which to land
and a good flat space just above the beach to use as hauling ground to get the boats out of the water if the weather dictated. It was used in my early recollection by many Brough boats, and others, but these are now very few in number.
The Clett Rocks there helped the shelter too.
From Brough Bay or Dwarwick as occasion demanded the cattle were a short drive to 93 acre Grotistoft in Barrock Hill, where James Tait farmed from 1818 till 1843. There the cattle would be got ready for the long drive South to Carlisle. Then his final move to Inkstack in 1843, but by then nearing 63 years old I think, with a better and larger farm of 300 acres and 8 labourers to work it, his droving days would have come to an end.