Touring with Hugh

 Today was a great day, sunny chockablock full of places and facts. I will try to remember most of it. But the key discovery was the probable home of Alexander Bain and his wife Catherine Matheson, and youngest children on the edge of the Culloden battlefield. Hugh had been the director of the Culloden Visitor Centre from 2001-7, so fair to say he knew the area well. We drove along, passing a place he knew and then returning to it. I think he was looking for anything else it might be. One of his mates lived in a caravan on a site down a track, but when we drove onto the tiny track we saw a modern bungalow. 

A woman in a Royal Mail uniform strode down the track and asked me, a bit surly, what I wanted.  You know the story, from Australia, ancestors might have lived here. My guide brought me. Well out steps Hugh who is a very old friend of hers and all is well. She was the partner of his mate.

I then really turned to the cottage off to the left, which looked directly onto Muirfield Farm, which is where the census address said it was. It looked old. Of course the roof would have been thatched, said Hugh, as a National Trust building, they didn’t have the money. 

This was the side view. I walked all around and peered into two tiny windows. It looked like a disused storage place, with boxes called ‘survey’ on them.

Could this be the cottage off 1861 I asked Hugh, who as a historian, would never lie. I think it very likely is, he said, it is exactly in the right place. Alex was a farm grieve, a bit like a manager, who would have had a house with his employment. So we are claiming it. He knew there was nothing else around.

He had maps that showed Muirfield Farm, and names do not change in this part of the world. This next view is the gate leading directly onto the fields of Muirfield Farm. This part of the eastern highlands is exceptionally fertile. Whereas most farms in the Highlands in the 1700 and 1800s would have farmed cattle by and large, in these parts there were oats, barley, potatoes and carrots, he said that potatoes took over from kale! And that the highlands suffered as much from the potato famine as Ireland. I am uncertain. I wonder what type of farming Alexander and family did?

I am writing in my very tiny single room not far from Ness River, but I can hear seagulls and the streets are quiet. There is no sign of the ‘abundant eating places nearby’ as described in the brochure! But a 15 minute walk takes you into the town Centre where all is provided. Not for me though, I had a sandwich. We had scotch broth for lunch which was very hearty, supposedly ‘lamb based’ but I heard not a baa!

I duly bought Hugh’s book ‘Culloden Tales’ written as stand alone stories from multiple perspectives of the battle from the gift shop at the Visitor Centre where we had Scotch broth, and also his last copy of ‘Rivers Running Far the story of those who went away’.