No 226 KELP BURNERS.

No  226. KELP  BURNING.

        Everyone knows about kelp burning. It was supposed to have made the Lairds rich, and, when it collapsed, so did they. The crofters did the work, the Lairds got the money.

It came into its heyday when Napoleon Bonaparte and the French prevented the import by  the United Kingdom of much needed materials from the Baltic. So Britain had to produce it herself. 

  Kelp actually had many uses for a long time. Our father was oversman for the Kelp burners on Grice Ness of Whitehall in Stronsay when we were there. I remember the kelpers, arguements over whose stint was whose, fist fights now and then, father keeping order as best he could. It was   “a sair weet could dour hard job”, and crofters made a little contribution to their meagre earnings by working at the kelp when the sea weed was ashore, catching it before the next high tide took it all out again. A storm from the right direction brought in the bounty, piled high. It was discovered that soda and potash, important chemicals in the soap and glass industry, could be extracted from burning seaweed into kelp. Iodine, still used by surgeons, could be extracted from seaweed. In Caithness where were these kelp shores?

In the Journal of Peter Campbell of Achnacly there was, dated 1808, a page of payments made to Kelp burners. They were made on behalf of the Freswick Trustee, and I guess Sinclair of Freswick was in Trusteeship because of financial problems which were endemic with most Caithness Lairds. 

Freswick must have had a monopoly on the Caithness Kelp Shores from Dunbeath round to the Haven o’ Warse at Gills Bay, which was in any case the extent of his Estate holdings. Further west the kelp shores belonged to others. Of interest are the names of the burners and no doubt there are descendants still around, the names are familiar enough. The payments were made over a Stamp Receipt - taxation again - which I have omitted from the entries. The names of the payees would have been a foreman on each beach and he would have paid the others working there.

Example was, see below, Malcolm Ross in Duncansbay furnishing articles to the Kelpers of Duncansbay and Stroma.

                       

F.K.Trustee                 Jany 25^th,  1808.

James Corner, Kelpburner, Duncansby. paid him amount of

his acct. for burning Kelp on the Shores of Dunbeath   £6.02.09d

F.K.Trustee

Walter Dunnet & Gilbert Laird, paid them amount of an acct.

for burning Kelp on the Shores  of Duncansbay,

Crop 1807 per acct .                                       £   7.06.08¾d

F.K.Trustee

John Sinclair, Feur in Stroma,  paid him amt of an acct.

for burning Kelp on the Shore of Stroma.

per dischd. acct .                          £ 12.01.02¼ d

F.K.Trustee

Ben: Henderson & Alexr. Ogstone, Feurs in             Duncansbay,

paid them amt. of an acct. for burning Kelp on the Shore of

Duncansbay per discharged acct                  £  9.12.05d

F.K.Trustee

John Manson, Girnell Man, Duncansbay, Cash given him per

Stamp receipt for paying freight of Boats for carrying

50 Bolls of Meal from Duncansbay to Thurso.                           £  2.10.00d

                        25 Jany. 1808.

.Freswick Trustee  paid William Thompson, mason, to acct for building

 the Store House of Duncansbay                 £27.04.03d

25^th Freswick Trustee paid Malcolm Ross, Mrcht in Duncansbay, Junr. of an acct for articles furnished to the Store House  of Duncansbay per discharged acct     .£ 0.16.1¼ d

25^th  F.K’s.Trustee paid William Thompson amount of an acct. for

burning  Kelp on the Shore of Warse, Crop 1807  . £2.10.00d

                       

Febr 16^th

F.K’s.Trustee paid Mr Ben: Calder of Mount Pleasant

the rent of his            Store House in Thurso                         £5.00.00d

Febr 20^th

F.K’s.Trustee paid Malcolm Ross, Merchant in Duncansbay

amount of an acct. for articles furnished the Kelpers of

Duncansbay and Stroma                                         £0.16.06½ d

F.K’s.Trustee paid John Manson, Girnalman at Duncansbay, for wood

& other Material furnished to the Store House of Duncansbay

per particular acct.                                       £16.13.04¼ d

Febr 20^th

F.K’s.Trustee paid John Manson, Girnal-man at Duncansbay

his wages for being Girnal-Man and for other articles furnished                                

to the Store House of Duncansbay per acct. & receipt.            £ 3.16.06d

F.W.Trustee

John Manson, Girnell Man, Duncansbay, Cash given him per

Stamp receipt for paying freight of Boats for carrying

50 Bolls of Meal from Duncansbay to Thurso.                           £  2.10.00d

Freswk paid George Brodie for giving to the Kelper Dunbeath            £ 5.00 00d

I keep in the reference to the Store Houses, both of Duncansbay and the one of Calder of Mount Pleasant in Thurso, though I do not know if they were solely for kelp if at all or for meal or grain. I do know that the kelp in Stronsay had to be safely stored in a building to keep it dry until shipping day. The Girnal of Duncansbay may well have held dry kelp, and Duncansbay of that time was later renamed the present John o’ Groats, not the cliffs.

From 1893 to 1913 in Rousam in Stronsay my grandfather David Pottinger had references in Wm Tait’s Diary of carting kelp for many Rousam Head crofters to the pier for onward shipping, and I think he stored it dry for them in part of the farm steading of The Bu’ of Rousam.

When burnt kelp was a heavy dense product, was only of importance to some, and it is a myth that it kept whole areas in gainfull and profitable employment.

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hi //  if you use this it will be an exercise in setting it all out !!! // will send fotos via Picasa of kelp burners // regards // morris //

The season must have started early as in 1896 Rousam was in the Diary “Apr 14 thur Carting ware to kelpers am - Carting ware to land pm.”

IRON HORSE NEWTONMORE

 

THE IRON HORSE Cottage at Newtonmore. Farm Museum

 

No 225. THE IRON HORSE. pb Groat 07.12.2012.

Many a crofter had a horse in the Barn, or the Stable. No feeding required, it was a British Anzani Iron Horse. I do not know when the Anzani Iron Horse was invented, but it has been around for a very long time now. No doubt there were other makes than Anzani, the Trusty comes to my mind. But it was a crofter’s machine par excellence. The Cub Cadet was another one, more of a very wee tractor.

 There is a good Iron Horse at Mary-Ann’s Cottage at Dunnet which I believe is still in working order. The Cottage is closed for the winter.

One lies at Newtonmore Farm Museum on the road South, well worth a visit in passing in its own right with much else of old farm machinery and bits and bobs. A good restaurant is there too for a quick coffee, or a comfort stop!!

They are to build a large new display shed there to incorporate the  material still in Kingussie Farm Museum, which is now closed to the public. Bob Powell, who is in charge of it all there and at Newtonmore, took me there for a look. Guess what, there was an old, very old indeed, simple threshing mill from Houston’s Mill at John o’ Groats. Saved from the scrap heap, thankfully.

 It had been built by McKidd in Thurso Foundry in 1841, and is by a wide margin the oldest threshing mill I know of. On both sides of it were many names and signatures written with an old joiner’s lead pencil. Difficult to read, faint, but perhaps if scanned with an ultra violet light the names can be brought back to life. I think every one now long gone in Groats must have left their mark. 

Like at Hendrie Geddes Mill in Mey in Feb 14^th 1664, where there was a bit of nonsense with a lassy having her clothes lifted by young Jon Geddes, to the great amusement of others there, Groats Mill must have been a warm and snug meeting place for locals in an evening.  No doubt at all behaviour would have been much better by Houston’s time!!!

Life is well displayed at Newtonmore of days not too long gone, thatched houses, old  implements, a garden plot growing tatties and kale and much else. The illustration shown is of the Iron Horse there.

Vintage Machinery Clubs usually have a few at their Shows, sometimes in their own right, sometimes as an adjunct to a County Show or a Vintage Machinery Show. There is annually one at John o’ Groats..

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There are still ploughing matches held entirely of Iron Horses at work. I opened up a few on the computer and put on my ear phones to listen to the old sound of working Iron  Horses. Fascinating to watch and a good illustration in its own right of a part of what crofting must have been like yesterday.

  They were very workable on a croft, supplanting a horse or even a cow or two for ploughing. The economics of that was to be able to keep another cow and to have a calf to sell. The cow could provide more milk to make into cheese or butter.

The Iron Horses I have seen mostly had a plough body attached but there were other uses to which they could be adapted. Later ones could be seen with rubber tyres but iron wheels with spade lugs were the ones I remember.

Though I never worked one I think you could add such attachments as a small harrow, a drill ridger, a scuffler. There was one which had a small knife mower across the front, useful enough to cut a patch of hay. And no doubt other makes I cannot recall.

 I remember one that a knacky crofter had adapted to have a small drawbar and he had built himself a wee cairty to pull behind it. Did the job.

They were used by gardeners who sometimes had a small portion of ground in a village or town and worked as a Market Gardener, making a slender living. There was one in Wick just to the Parish Kirk side of where the Norseman Hotel now stands, or possibly the Hotel  now stands on top of it. Danny Morrison’s Bus from Castletown via Barrock, Greenland and Lyth stopped just beside it on arriving at Wick so we could admire the constant changing of the very neat rows of various vegetables, sold on the spot and as fresh as you could get.

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 I did not know that gardener other than a Hello in passing, but he worked there for a very long time. No doubt some ancient Wicker could put a name to him.