No 231 THE TATTIE PIT.

No 231.  The Tattie Pit.

Most crofters and many farmers stored their tatties outdoors in tattie pits. Shed space in many steadings was often scarce and farms, big or small, often stored their tatties in a clamp, changing site every year. Farm workers would have no shed space at all so clamping their tatties was the norm. Many preferred to have a clamp anyway as it kept the tatties better than shed storage.

A bit of ground was selected, usually on a slight rise or slope and therefore dry. In late autumn, 22^nd  October  1896, the day after lifting his tatties, Tom Delday, a Deerness man then working for my grandfather at  the Bu  of Rousam in Stronsay, went to the hill for turf to cover his tatty pit. That turf would be old and tough, easily flayed off the hill.  It might have been the turf flayed off the peat bank earlier in the year and set aside for later collection, though not all such turrings were suitable for the tattie clamp. There was a special turring breast spade that allowed a man to skim off a thin layer of turf, different from the turrings of a peat bank which were normally very much thicker.

 Sir John Sinclair of Ulbster, about 1810, took skilled men from Westmorland in England to Thurso East to skim the turf off new land for taking into cultivation on the eventual farm thereof. That turf was but a few inches thick, fibrous grass and roots and maybe some heather. It was wind and sun dried, gathered into heaps, set on fire and the ashes spead as  fertiliser on the new ground.

In places it was a bad practice as it denuded some land to improve bits elsewhere.

It was done about 1860 on my first farm of Lower Dounreay, under William Reid Tait, then factor for the Murkle Estate owned by Admiral Sir John Gordon Sinclair, Bart, (who died in 1863)

The old leases expired in 1859 and the whole Estate was remodelled, new farms laid out, crofters and cottars cleared .

The Rousam  peat hill produced a great variety of differing turfs, some heather covered, some tough old grass, and Delday would know full well what was best suited to cover his tatty clamp or pit.

Such turf would have been great insulation for the winter, placed on top of the pit after the tatties were heaped in a conical row.  Straw was placed over the tatties in a fairly thick layer, then the earth and turf which had been cleared to make the base of the pit was laid carefully on top, keeping the straw from blowing away overnight.  A layer of turf ASAP to finish it all. A small thick vent of upright straw was often set into the top of the clamp, allowing the tatties to breath surplus moisture into the outer air.

Such clamps were remarkably frost free, even in a bad winter, the insulation as good as it gets. Shed stored tatties could get frosted if care was not taken in covering with straw and any old sacks past their prime, or re-covering when the heap was opened to take some tatties out for the kitchen.

Care was taken to see that the surface run of the heather or grass was slanted downwards to run off as much rain as possible. The same turf was used by many a crofter to roof his cottage. Culloden Battlefield has an old house roofed in the same manner, and we can still find a house or a building so roofed, a relic and reminder of the past but often still functional.

A quck run through William Tait’s Diaries gave a resume of tattie lifting.

October 17^th, 1907, lifting potatoes a.m. .  Champions, a variety much grown, went into two  pits, five barrels in each. Fine day, no drout, a good day for tattie lifting. Next day putting earth on tattie pits.

Following  Spring on 3^rd April, a Saturday, they  took in a pit of tatties a.m.  Over the years it seems late March early April was a fairly usual time for taking in a pit of tatties.

Then to sorting them.  One good reason for the time was to get the smaller seed tatties sorted as well as the bigger eating ones.

I came across a crofter doing just that recently and took a few photos, with his permission of course. !!!  Two round hand-held riddles, a helper to fill them, a sunny day to enjoy. First the small riddle which let earth and small bits fall through. Then tip that riddle into the larger one to keep the big tatties within it and let the smaller seed tatties fall through into some recepticle. Backbreaking and tedious work on a long day, but it got the job done!!