Monday 6 February 2012
No 204. Small holders hand me down mills.
No 204. Early Crofter Mills. Revised 16th Jan 2012 George Campbell name taken out!!
The Machine Age came late to farms compared to the huge woollen mills of Yorkshire and the equally large cotton mills of Lancashire. Sheer scale dictated that only large farms could stand the cost of putting in a steam engine, which came in on a farm scale late in the 1800s. Caithness once had many such with their tall chimneys stacks of which Ackergill Mains have possibly the last ones still standing. They were usually built on the Home Farms of the Estates, or larger rented farms such as Greenland Mains and Rattar Mains on the Traill Estate, which no longer exists, the farms being sold to the sitting tenants.
Progress saw the simple hand mill being improved by adding another wooden pegged drum beyond the threshing drum to carry the straw a bit further, moving the straw over a grid of splits which allowed more room for separation of the grain. The oats or bere dropped underneath onto the floor to be taken away and later cleaned through the hand turned fanners. There is a hand mill with the added straw drum at Corrigal Farm Museum in Orkney, I have not so far found a similar one in Caithness.
These simple hand mills with the additional straw shaking drum would have been at the end of the power of one man to turn, and a 90 year old friend of mine in Orkney told me that in his youth on a croft it was hard and tiring work, only a few sheaves being threshed at a time for their few cows. The double handled drive for two men, or women, was a step forward.
G.W.Murray of Banff Foundry in his 1878 Catalogue, whose “Tiny” hand mill had two person drive, stated that such was the success of his “Tiny mill” that he had demand for ever better and larger threshing mills, and he went on to build an escalating range of up to No 6, which we will come to in due course.
Moving on to larger crofter mills, there is one to be seen at abandoned Lappin Croft Steading across the road from Laidhay Museum. Driven by a water wheel in it’s heyday, it has a straw drum behind the threshing drum. Unfortunately the door is off the barn, cattle are entering and sadly that mill is deteriorating badly. Built in 1811 I believe, so that is a pity.
More get-at-able and saved for posterity, Wick Heritage has a small crofter’s mill made by Meiklejohn and Sutherland, Millwrights in Wick. It has a wooden pegged straw shaking drum fitted.
There is another much larger dis-used old mill I came across. Quite impressive, originally driven from outside the barn wall by a horse mill course. The mill at first had but one wooden pegged straw shaker drum. Quite easily seen is that a millwright then lengthened the mill by splicing on a section with an additional straw shaking drum. These two in-tamden straw drums gave it considerably better grain separation power. A good mill, though the original mill course had been superseded by an engine by the time I saw it. These straw shaking drums were the forerunners of the oscillating shakers we know today. A good foto of the mill shows the steel teeth of the drum and the wooden straw shaker beyond it. It also had a fluted roller feed that held and moved the sheaf on slowly so the drum could better thresh the grain.
The original threshing drums were fairly large with hard wood replaceable pegs. About 4 feet in diameter, they turned more slowly but the larger diameter gave it enough striking power t5o thresh cleanly. Then steel teeth drums came in, some still with a wooden main frame, some steel throughout. These drums were lesser in diameter, about two feet, but had a higher speed. After high speed drums came in, about 1.000 revs per minute, these older drums were called semi-high speed drums, but obviously they were not so called in their early days.
Some of the older mills were rebuilt with these newer drums fitted but the old larger hood was usually left in situ. The mill also needed rebuilding at the feeding throat of the mill but easily done by skilled local mill-wrights.
Usually the rebuilding would be done at the change-over from horse course drive to engine drive.
The crofter for a long time had no resource to these improving mills, neither the barn room nor the power nor the money. Getting a hand-me-down old mill from a larger farm was welcome.
So they worked away with very simple mills, helped each other on a threshing day, or provided each other with an extra horse to make up a two-horse team.
Photo.
(1) Old Mill . Steel drum teeth and wooden pegged straw shaker drum.
The Machine Age came late to farms compared to the huge woollen mills of Yorkshire and the equally large cotton mills of Lancashire. Sheer scale dictated that only large farms could stand the cost of putting in a steam engine, which came in on a farm scale late in the 1800s. Caithness once had many such with their tall chimneys stacks of which Ackergill Mains have possibly the last ones still standing. They were usually built on the Home Farms of the Estates, or larger rented farms such as Greenland Mains and Rattar Mains on the Traill Estate, which no longer exists, the farms being sold to the sitting tenants.
Progress saw the simple hand mill being improved by adding another wooden pegged drum beyond the threshing drum to carry the straw a bit further, moving the straw over a grid of splits which allowed more room for separation of the grain. The oats or bere dropped underneath onto the floor to be taken away and later cleaned through the hand turned fanners. There is a hand mill with the added straw drum at Corrigal Farm Museum in Orkney, I have not so far found a similar one in Caithness.
These simple hand mills with the additional straw shaking drum would have been at the end of the power of one man to turn, and a 90 year old friend of mine in Orkney told me that in his youth on a croft it was hard and tiring work, only a few sheaves being threshed at a time for their few cows. The double handled drive for two men, or women, was a step forward.
G.W.Murray of Banff Foundry in his 1878 Catalogue, whose “Tiny” hand mill had two person drive, stated that such was the success of his “Tiny mill” that he had demand for ever better and larger threshing mills, and he went on to build an escalating range of up to No 6, which we will come to in due course.
Moving on to larger crofter mills, there is one to be seen at abandoned Lappin Croft Steading across the road from Laidhay Museum. Driven by a water wheel in it’s heyday, it has a straw drum behind the threshing drum. Unfortunately the door is off the barn, cattle are entering and sadly that mill is deteriorating badly. Built in 1811 I believe, so that is a pity.
More get-at-able and saved for posterity, Wick Heritage has a small crofter’s mill made by Meiklejohn and Sutherland, Millwrights in Wick. It has a wooden pegged straw shaking drum fitted.
There is another much larger dis-used old mill I came across. Quite impressive, originally driven from outside the barn wall by a horse mill course. The mill at first had but one wooden pegged straw shaker drum. Quite easily seen is that a millwright then lengthened the mill by splicing on a section with an additional straw shaking drum. These two in-tamden straw drums gave it considerably better grain separation power. A good mill, though the original mill course had been superseded by an engine by the time I saw it. These straw shaking drums were the forerunners of the oscillating shakers we know today. A good foto of the mill shows the steel teeth of the drum and the wooden straw shaker beyond it. It also had a fluted roller feed that held and moved the sheaf on slowly so the drum could better thresh the grain.
The original threshing drums were fairly large with hard wood replaceable pegs. About 4 feet in diameter, they turned more slowly but the larger diameter gave it enough striking power t5o thresh cleanly. Then steel teeth drums came in, some still with a wooden main frame, some steel throughout. These drums were lesser in diameter, about two feet, but had a higher speed. After high speed drums came in, about 1.000 revs per minute, these older drums were called semi-high speed drums, but obviously they were not so called in their early days.
Some of the older mills were rebuilt with these newer drums fitted but the old larger hood was usually left in situ. The mill also needed rebuilding at the feeding throat of the mill but easily done by skilled local mill-wrights.
Usually the rebuilding would be done at the change-over from horse course drive to engine drive.
The crofter for a long time had no resource to these improving mills, neither the barn room nor the power nor the money. Getting a hand-me-down old mill from a larger farm was welcome.
So they worked away with very simple mills, helped each other on a threshing day, or provided each other with an extra horse to make up a two-horse team.
Photo.
(1) Old Mill . Steel drum teeth and wooden pegged straw shaker drum.
No 203. Hand Mills.
Two Fotos via Picassa
No 203. Hand Threshing Mills.
The first real threshing mill is credited with being designed by Andrew Meikle, 1719 to 1811, of Houston Mill, Dunbar. He invented his first one in 1784 and patented it in 1788. There were other devices tried before that but he got the credit. These mills could only be afforded by large farms. His invention allowed for the threshing, shaking and winnowing of corn by one machine, driven usually by horse power on a mill course. Previously threshing even on large farms was endlessly tedious using the flail. Barn men often had short lives, the incessant dust leading to fatal lung conditions. Heated stacks in a bad harvest even into my own time gave cause of farmer’s lung, progessive and often eventally fatal. Emphysema was another lung complication exacerbated by the old threshing methods.
Early inventions had a long way to travel before effective design but progress always moves on. Meikle’s basic principal was a revolving drum to strip grain off the straw, and there was much trial and error on the way.
Large Threshing Mills which bigger farms could afford were beyond the resources of crofters, and I remember Stronsay crofters still using the flail. At Whitehall we had a large threshing mill built in situ into the barn, immovable. It required a large steam engine or it’s successor, a large oil engine. It was a tenant’s fixture and had to be taken over at valuation at outgoing by the incoming tenant. High speed drum and all the trimmings!!! Davie Davidson of Scarths in Kirkwall rebuilt that one in my early days in Stronsay, going on to do the same later for our father at Greenland Mains and Stemster Mains.
A crofter had neither the room nor the buildings to put in a large mill, nor the money. They had to make do with what they could afford, and the invention of a small hand threshing mill would have been a great step forward from the flail. The earliest small one I have come across was the “Tiny” Hand Mill of George W. Murray of Banff Foundry. There is one still existing in Orkney. In his firm’s Catalogue of 1878, now reprinted by myself, he described his “Tiny” No 1. Hand Mill. Made entirely of iron, he stated that it was ideal for triopical countries as it would neither warp nor rot in the damp heat, nor be eaten by termites!!
Murray’s No 1 “Tiny” Thresher was designed as a Crofter’s mill, cost in 1878 was £6.10/- for the basic machine. Within six months of the first one being introduced Murray had sold over a thousand units. No mean feat for a small Foundry in Banff, though he had his Tiny Hand Mill tested and well publicised before full scale production. Orders came in from every country, and Murrray stated in his 1878 Catalogue “Over Ten Thousand in use in Great Britain and on the Continent and Colonies.” Murray’s “Tiny” Mill was driven by two handles either side of a central shaft, two men turning though one could have done a turn. That shaft turned a large toothed pinion which turned a smaller pinion on the drum shaft which gave the required speed to the threshing drum. Murray’s 1878 Catalogue recommended 36 to 40 turns of the hand per minute for wheat, less for oats, and an upward gearing of 6 times is my best estimate.
So I am guessing that the drum speed would not less than 200 revs a minute, lets say 250. That was not too far off the 300 rev speed of the later semi-high speed drums.
Feeding was recommended at one third of a sheaf at a time, easy does it. The grain dropped below through a mesh screen onto the floor and would have then been put through a grain fanners which was an old and simple design which stood the test of time for many long years. The straw was ejected over the end onto the floor. A few sheaves at a time, but with only a couple of cows on a croft that would suffice.
Fanners were invented quite some time before the threshing mill. In William Tait’s Diaries 1880 to 1941 there was constant reference to “Dressing oats” - a phrase for cleaning grain in the loft with the fanners.
The Royal Northern Agricultural Society, after thoroughly testing Murray’s Tiny Mill working powers prior to 1878, awarded it the Society’s Silver Medal, expressing in their report that “It worked so satisfactorily that it recommended itself to crofters and small farmers.”
Bear in mind that emigration to North America, Australia and New Zealand was in full swing by that time. So the immigrant sodbuster of the U.S.A. and Canada, getting a quarter section of a square mile -160 acres - as his homestead allocation, could carry on his way West a Murray “Tiny” Hand Mill, light enough and portable enough and tough enough to hitch a lift tied to the side of a Covered Wagon.
No 203. Hand Threshing Mills.
The first real threshing mill is credited with being designed by Andrew Meikle, 1719 to 1811, of Houston Mill, Dunbar. He invented his first one in 1784 and patented it in 1788. There were other devices tried before that but he got the credit. These mills could only be afforded by large farms. His invention allowed for the threshing, shaking and winnowing of corn by one machine, driven usually by horse power on a mill course. Previously threshing even on large farms was endlessly tedious using the flail. Barn men often had short lives, the incessant dust leading to fatal lung conditions. Heated stacks in a bad harvest even into my own time gave cause of farmer’s lung, progessive and often eventally fatal. Emphysema was another lung complication exacerbated by the old threshing methods.
Early inventions had a long way to travel before effective design but progress always moves on. Meikle’s basic principal was a revolving drum to strip grain off the straw, and there was much trial and error on the way.
Large Threshing Mills which bigger farms could afford were beyond the resources of crofters, and I remember Stronsay crofters still using the flail. At Whitehall we had a large threshing mill built in situ into the barn, immovable. It required a large steam engine or it’s successor, a large oil engine. It was a tenant’s fixture and had to be taken over at valuation at outgoing by the incoming tenant. High speed drum and all the trimmings!!! Davie Davidson of Scarths in Kirkwall rebuilt that one in my early days in Stronsay, going on to do the same later for our father at Greenland Mains and Stemster Mains.
A crofter had neither the room nor the buildings to put in a large mill, nor the money. They had to make do with what they could afford, and the invention of a small hand threshing mill would have been a great step forward from the flail. The earliest small one I have come across was the “Tiny” Hand Mill of George W. Murray of Banff Foundry. There is one still existing in Orkney. In his firm’s Catalogue of 1878, now reprinted by myself, he described his “Tiny” No 1. Hand Mill. Made entirely of iron, he stated that it was ideal for triopical countries as it would neither warp nor rot in the damp heat, nor be eaten by termites!!
Murray’s No 1 “Tiny” Thresher was designed as a Crofter’s mill, cost in 1878 was £6.10/- for the basic machine. Within six months of the first one being introduced Murray had sold over a thousand units. No mean feat for a small Foundry in Banff, though he had his Tiny Hand Mill tested and well publicised before full scale production. Orders came in from every country, and Murrray stated in his 1878 Catalogue “Over Ten Thousand in use in Great Britain and on the Continent and Colonies.” Murray’s “Tiny” Mill was driven by two handles either side of a central shaft, two men turning though one could have done a turn. That shaft turned a large toothed pinion which turned a smaller pinion on the drum shaft which gave the required speed to the threshing drum. Murray’s 1878 Catalogue recommended 36 to 40 turns of the hand per minute for wheat, less for oats, and an upward gearing of 6 times is my best estimate.
So I am guessing that the drum speed would not less than 200 revs a minute, lets say 250. That was not too far off the 300 rev speed of the later semi-high speed drums.
Feeding was recommended at one third of a sheaf at a time, easy does it. The grain dropped below through a mesh screen onto the floor and would have then been put through a grain fanners which was an old and simple design which stood the test of time for many long years. The straw was ejected over the end onto the floor. A few sheaves at a time, but with only a couple of cows on a croft that would suffice.
Fanners were invented quite some time before the threshing mill. In William Tait’s Diaries 1880 to 1941 there was constant reference to “Dressing oats” - a phrase for cleaning grain in the loft with the fanners.
The Royal Northern Agricultural Society, after thoroughly testing Murray’s Tiny Mill working powers prior to 1878, awarded it the Society’s Silver Medal, expressing in their report that “It worked so satisfactorily that it recommended itself to crofters and small farmers.”
Bear in mind that emigration to North America, Australia and New Zealand was in full swing by that time. So the immigrant sodbuster of the U.S.A. and Canada, getting a quarter section of a square mile -160 acres - as his homestead allocation, could carry on his way West a Murray “Tiny” Hand Mill, light enough and portable enough and tough enough to hitch a lift tied to the side of a Covered Wagon.
Wednesday 1 February 2012
No 202. The Crofter's Barn Itself.
No 202. The Crofter’s Barn Itself.
There are two crofter’s barns still in good condition and easily visited by the public in Caithness, though there are the remains of many. Summer time will have to do as they are both shut for the winter. Laidhay in Dunbeath is one, Mary-Ann’s in Dunnet the other. Both are well built and in good condition.
The Laidhay Barn was built about 1840, or so I was told. It shows the old naturally bent crucks that held the roof beams, still in great shape. Held together in bits and pieces, spliced or pinned, they did a good job that lasted well. They started from the floor level, the beams built into the wall, then arched over to meet at the top. Each rafter had its own peculiar shape, but they did the job.
That style was common, and a crofter would many a time get some bog timbers out of the peat moss, dry them and build them into his barn wall. Mis-shapen they usually were.
That same construction also did for the old houses and other buildings. Any similar naturally bent timbers would do, they did not need to be bog birch. Rising from the ground up, they were not laid on the top of built stone wall as sawn timber rafters were.
Cross beams next, then odd bits and pieces crossing them lying side by side to hold the roof, which was often of grass or heather turf. Equally useful was being thatched (thaiked) with long heather or reeds. Straw was much too valuable for other purposes to be used on a roof and did not have long lasting properties.
.
The “Thaik Loon” below the “Paddle of Kirk”, both in the low land below Kirk and a bit downstream to the east from Barrock Mains, was a rich source of thaik material. Well marked in an original Lyth Estate map of 1777, of which I have a beautiful copy. Lyth Estate then belonged to Alexander Sinclair of Barrock, grandson of the original George Sinclair of Barrock. Thaik was a particularly long rush growing in very wet conditions, practically a watery marsh, and well suited for thatching. These long reeds grew in my boyhood at Whitehall down at Old St Peter’s Kirk, really floating in a mat on top of water. Good nesting ground for water birds, we ventured onto it when we should not have, shoogly indeed!!! I had similar reeds floating in the old Marl Pit at Lower Dounreay, now filled in and covered with spoil.
Hard work indeed to cut and carry reeds from any Leans to where-ever the barn was but needs must. A natural Thaik Loon or Leans was treasured, though not too many were around.
On the old estates with a bit of money sawn timber was often provided free to the crofter.
He then had to quarry the stone and build the barn himself, or sometimes use land stones
tediously gathered. Simple enough to build, apart from hard work. These were sometimes
covered with thin flagstone shed covers of Caithness origin, thin enough not to bear too
heavy a weight on the roof. There is an empty building below the Main road at Murkle
showing the old system. And some barns were well and properly slated with Caithness
slates such as Mary-Ann’s. Once built no doubt the rent of the croft would then be
raised!!!
The Crofter’s Barn itself had a certain pattern. An earthern or clay threshing floor for the flail, soft enough not to break the grain or the flail, hard enough to offer resistance. The classic two doors opposite each other to give a through draft to winnow the chaff from the good grain, though these doors did not need to be opposite the threshing floor. Even in old vestigal croft ruins these doors are still visible. There is one existing in the Greenland Mains Links, a long left-over from an old steading called Hallanmake in General Roy’s Map of 1747/52.
That croft then stood on the edge of Loch Heilen, it is now 1,000 metres away from the Loch as much sand drifted in from Dunnet Beach since 1747 to block the former Loch Heilen outlet to the Burn of Mid Sands and divert the water to enter the sea at Ham.
The original barns could be quite low, and there are a few where the walls were later heightened and re-roofed to allow for better machinery. The one at Mary-Ann’s was well built with good stone slightly before the survey of the 1906 Ordnance Survey Map, good sawn timbers in the roof.
From the flail improvements appeared as the machine age progressed. Simple threshing machines appeared and fanners to clean the grain. Not much would be threshed in a day, it would be very much hand to mouth, threshing just a few sheaves with a simple hand mill for a cow or two.
We will come to the enormous progress made with threshing mills in due course, but the crofter in days bygone had little money for improvements in his barn.
There are two crofter’s barns still in good condition and easily visited by the public in Caithness, though there are the remains of many. Summer time will have to do as they are both shut for the winter. Laidhay in Dunbeath is one, Mary-Ann’s in Dunnet the other. Both are well built and in good condition.
The Laidhay Barn was built about 1840, or so I was told. It shows the old naturally bent crucks that held the roof beams, still in great shape. Held together in bits and pieces, spliced or pinned, they did a good job that lasted well. They started from the floor level, the beams built into the wall, then arched over to meet at the top. Each rafter had its own peculiar shape, but they did the job.
That style was common, and a crofter would many a time get some bog timbers out of the peat moss, dry them and build them into his barn wall. Mis-shapen they usually were.
That same construction also did for the old houses and other buildings. Any similar naturally bent timbers would do, they did not need to be bog birch. Rising from the ground up, they were not laid on the top of built stone wall as sawn timber rafters were.
Cross beams next, then odd bits and pieces crossing them lying side by side to hold the roof, which was often of grass or heather turf. Equally useful was being thatched (thaiked) with long heather or reeds. Straw was much too valuable for other purposes to be used on a roof and did not have long lasting properties.
.
The “Thaik Loon” below the “Paddle of Kirk”, both in the low land below Kirk and a bit downstream to the east from Barrock Mains, was a rich source of thaik material. Well marked in an original Lyth Estate map of 1777, of which I have a beautiful copy. Lyth Estate then belonged to Alexander Sinclair of Barrock, grandson of the original George Sinclair of Barrock. Thaik was a particularly long rush growing in very wet conditions, practically a watery marsh, and well suited for thatching. These long reeds grew in my boyhood at Whitehall down at Old St Peter’s Kirk, really floating in a mat on top of water. Good nesting ground for water birds, we ventured onto it when we should not have, shoogly indeed!!! I had similar reeds floating in the old Marl Pit at Lower Dounreay, now filled in and covered with spoil.
Hard work indeed to cut and carry reeds from any Leans to where-ever the barn was but needs must. A natural Thaik Loon or Leans was treasured, though not too many were around.
On the old estates with a bit of money sawn timber was often provided free to the crofter.
He then had to quarry the stone and build the barn himself, or sometimes use land stones
tediously gathered. Simple enough to build, apart from hard work. These were sometimes
covered with thin flagstone shed covers of Caithness origin, thin enough not to bear too
heavy a weight on the roof. There is an empty building below the Main road at Murkle
showing the old system. And some barns were well and properly slated with Caithness
slates such as Mary-Ann’s. Once built no doubt the rent of the croft would then be
raised!!!
The Crofter’s Barn itself had a certain pattern. An earthern or clay threshing floor for the flail, soft enough not to break the grain or the flail, hard enough to offer resistance. The classic two doors opposite each other to give a through draft to winnow the chaff from the good grain, though these doors did not need to be opposite the threshing floor. Even in old vestigal croft ruins these doors are still visible. There is one existing in the Greenland Mains Links, a long left-over from an old steading called Hallanmake in General Roy’s Map of 1747/52.
That croft then stood on the edge of Loch Heilen, it is now 1,000 metres away from the Loch as much sand drifted in from Dunnet Beach since 1747 to block the former Loch Heilen outlet to the Burn of Mid Sands and divert the water to enter the sea at Ham.
The original barns could be quite low, and there are a few where the walls were later heightened and re-roofed to allow for better machinery. The one at Mary-Ann’s was well built with good stone slightly before the survey of the 1906 Ordnance Survey Map, good sawn timbers in the roof.
From the flail improvements appeared as the machine age progressed. Simple threshing machines appeared and fanners to clean the grain. Not much would be threshed in a day, it would be very much hand to mouth, threshing just a few sheaves with a simple hand mill for a cow or two.
We will come to the enormous progress made with threshing mills in due course, but the crofter in days bygone had little money for improvements in his barn.
No 1. Horse Mill Gear to the Grind.
“THE CROFTER’S BARN”. // regards // morris //
No 1. “THE CROFTER’S BARN.”
HORSE MILL GEAR TO THE GRIND.
“Rain on my Window” was of my younger days in Stronsay. But perhaps another title for an occasional article on early crofting days in Caithness and in Orkney. There is still a great deal of information around, and “The Crofter’s Barn” comes to mind as a title, encompassing all of what crofts still have to offer. A huge and worthy subject, and a challenge too before all is forgotten.
Nothing brought home to me the inter-relationship between crofts and large farms more than my recent discussions in the John o’ Groat Journal about Mary-Ann’s Threshing Mill in Dunnet. I also went to Laidhay Museum in Dunbeath and photographed many of their treasures. Time is running out for those of us who can still tell about and indeed used many of the artefacts in Laidhay.
It would be nice if I could record some of the fascinating days gone by, of crofters, of their hard struggle to make a living on much too small a piece of thin ground, often lying outside the boundary dyke of the good land which was gathered in the 1800s by rapacious Landlords into the “Home Farm” of so many Estates.
Dim in the past, and the not too far gone past, much farm equipment was handed down from a big farm to a croft. As mechanisation proceeded and larger farms put in new machinery, or bought more modern implements, so their previous equipment frequently went on to do sterling service on many a croft. Worth very little as scrap iron, it still could be made good use of by a knacky crofter.
I got rid of our horses from Lower Dounreay in November 1955 when we were moved by the U.K.A.E.A. to Isauld, the carts and much of the horse equipment went West in the truest sense. Sutherland crofters took away my carts, my harness, my horse ploughs, drill ploughs, harrows and much else. Mostly bartered away for a fresh run salmon or two, or a haunch of venison, but sometimes for money.
Crofters took our two old horse reapers, our old 1938 Massey Harris binder went to R.B.Henderson, Achreamie. My first Combine, a small green Activ bought early in the 1960s and made in Sweden, could be seen years later just off the road up Strathnaver, still working. A nice size for a small farm or for a croft, it did me for a start with combining at Isauld, as the joined up farms of Lower Dounreay, Buldoo Croft and Isauld were now called.
Just on 100 years ago, on August 24th 1912, Wm Tait at The Bay, Stronsay, ventured into the Machine Age with a new oil engine for his thrashing mill. Until then he had worked his threshing mill with two horses on a mill course outside the barn wall. Shipped in from Kirkwall. “Oil” was an abbreviation for paraffin oil, sometimes later called Vaporising Oil, or TVO, not petrol. I had forgotten until I read in his Diary that these engines were frequently called “Oil Engine”, which would have differentiated them from steam engines. John Scarth, Millwright, Kirkwall, had been at the Bay on June 13th taking measurements of the Mill. It would have required alterations to pinions, pulleys and shafts to change from horse course drive to the new engine.
On 28th Aug 1912 William got home wood for his new engine house, 2 bushels of cement and a cask of paraffin oil.
On Sept 7th he put in the concrete base for the new engine.
On Sept 12th he put the shaft and pinion of the horse mill course gear to James Peace of the Grind, a croft in Rousam Head, and lifted the heavy Crown Wheel out of the pit. Next day he put the Crown Wheel and the two heavy pit stones to the Grind.
On the 14th Aug. “Mr. Scarth came here today to fix up engine - fine day.”
On the 16th “Fixing up engine. Scarth at Whitehall (Sinclair) seeing their mill a.m. ”
On the 17th “Mr. Scarth working at mill & engine.”
On the 18th “Mr. Scarth finished fixing up engine, then went to Rothiesholm. (David
Pottinger) Paid Scarth to a/c per cheque £2.10/- .”
On the 20th “Sorting barn, fixing up partition. John Lennie soldered leak in engine tank.”
On the 5th Octr “Cutting finished in Inyemoor, started Matpow. Jas Peace helping.
Received from James Peace, Grind, £2 stg. half price Mill gear.”
The balance of the money of £2.stg from James Peace for the old mill gear was paid on 29th Octr 1915, “Got from J. Peace, Grind, £2 payment for horse gear in full.” Definitely extended credit, £4 stg in all!!
These transactions between Wm Tait and James Peace brought home how crofts benefited in so many ways from larger farms tooling up and older but still quite usable farm equipment serving someone on a croft for long years afterwards.
No 1. “THE CROFTER’S BARN.”
HORSE MILL GEAR TO THE GRIND.
“Rain on my Window” was of my younger days in Stronsay. But perhaps another title for an occasional article on early crofting days in Caithness and in Orkney. There is still a great deal of information around, and “The Crofter’s Barn” comes to mind as a title, encompassing all of what crofts still have to offer. A huge and worthy subject, and a challenge too before all is forgotten.
Nothing brought home to me the inter-relationship between crofts and large farms more than my recent discussions in the John o’ Groat Journal about Mary-Ann’s Threshing Mill in Dunnet. I also went to Laidhay Museum in Dunbeath and photographed many of their treasures. Time is running out for those of us who can still tell about and indeed used many of the artefacts in Laidhay.
It would be nice if I could record some of the fascinating days gone by, of crofters, of their hard struggle to make a living on much too small a piece of thin ground, often lying outside the boundary dyke of the good land which was gathered in the 1800s by rapacious Landlords into the “Home Farm” of so many Estates.
Dim in the past, and the not too far gone past, much farm equipment was handed down from a big farm to a croft. As mechanisation proceeded and larger farms put in new machinery, or bought more modern implements, so their previous equipment frequently went on to do sterling service on many a croft. Worth very little as scrap iron, it still could be made good use of by a knacky crofter.
I got rid of our horses from Lower Dounreay in November 1955 when we were moved by the U.K.A.E.A. to Isauld, the carts and much of the horse equipment went West in the truest sense. Sutherland crofters took away my carts, my harness, my horse ploughs, drill ploughs, harrows and much else. Mostly bartered away for a fresh run salmon or two, or a haunch of venison, but sometimes for money.
Crofters took our two old horse reapers, our old 1938 Massey Harris binder went to R.B.Henderson, Achreamie. My first Combine, a small green Activ bought early in the 1960s and made in Sweden, could be seen years later just off the road up Strathnaver, still working. A nice size for a small farm or for a croft, it did me for a start with combining at Isauld, as the joined up farms of Lower Dounreay, Buldoo Croft and Isauld were now called.
Just on 100 years ago, on August 24th 1912, Wm Tait at The Bay, Stronsay, ventured into the Machine Age with a new oil engine for his thrashing mill. Until then he had worked his threshing mill with two horses on a mill course outside the barn wall. Shipped in from Kirkwall. “Oil” was an abbreviation for paraffin oil, sometimes later called Vaporising Oil, or TVO, not petrol. I had forgotten until I read in his Diary that these engines were frequently called “Oil Engine”, which would have differentiated them from steam engines. John Scarth, Millwright, Kirkwall, had been at the Bay on June 13th taking measurements of the Mill. It would have required alterations to pinions, pulleys and shafts to change from horse course drive to the new engine.
On 28th Aug 1912 William got home wood for his new engine house, 2 bushels of cement and a cask of paraffin oil.
On Sept 7th he put in the concrete base for the new engine.
On Sept 12th he put the shaft and pinion of the horse mill course gear to James Peace of the Grind, a croft in Rousam Head, and lifted the heavy Crown Wheel out of the pit. Next day he put the Crown Wheel and the two heavy pit stones to the Grind.
On the 14th Aug. “Mr. Scarth came here today to fix up engine - fine day.”
On the 16th “Fixing up engine. Scarth at Whitehall (Sinclair) seeing their mill a.m. ”
On the 17th “Mr. Scarth working at mill & engine.”
On the 18th “Mr. Scarth finished fixing up engine, then went to Rothiesholm. (David
Pottinger) Paid Scarth to a/c per cheque £2.10/- .”
On the 20th “Sorting barn, fixing up partition. John Lennie soldered leak in engine tank.”
On the 5th Octr “Cutting finished in Inyemoor, started Matpow. Jas Peace helping.
Received from James Peace, Grind, £2 stg. half price Mill gear.”
The balance of the money of £2.stg from James Peace for the old mill gear was paid on 29th Octr 1915, “Got from J. Peace, Grind, £2 payment for horse gear in full.” Definitely extended credit, £4 stg in all!!
These transactions between Wm Tait and James Peace brought home how crofts benefited in so many ways from larger farms tooling up and older but still quite usable farm equipment serving someone on a croft for long years afterwards.
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