The original Gaelic name given to the old drove road that runs through the hills between Strathnairn and Strathdearn is the Càrn na h-Innseig. Most call it the ‘Garbole road’ today. It’s what fits on a sign-post perhaps. Garbole (Garbh Tholl) is over the other side, in Strathdearn proper.
Innseag can mean various things. Dwelly’s Gaelic dictionary gives;
“Innseag -eig -an s. f. dim. of innis 2. isle in a river 3. detached field or pasture 4. tale 5. little patch of arable ground, as in hilly or wooded countries.”
In her essay 'Roads, Railways and Bridges' Hilda Hesling, in the late 1990s, mentions the simple tracks that people would have used to travel over the moors
“‘one road that has remained much the same still exists: the single track road from Farr to Garbole, following the lie of the land .... this road is substantially the same as the one as the drove road which linked the fertile areas of the Black Isle, Easter Ross and Aird ... crossing Strathnairn at Farr, passing through the hills to the cattle markets of the South. This route is marked on one of the earliest maps of the area - that done for the York Timber Company in 1729.”
I wanted to know more about this road, having read Hilda’s essay and having spent time up there cutting a few peats this summer with the kids. Its a road I often take with my bike.
a-null taobh srath narainn / looking over strathnairn way
allt beag, uasal fèith na h-earrainn (an raon farsaing), coire ruidhe, glac a’ chatha is creag dubh (laimh clhì)
stream, plain, corrie, pass & hill names in Gaelic technicolour
a’ chluich aig allt beag - playing in allt beag
gheibh sinn fàdan mòra … peats drying
oidhche shamhraidh. ‘Thèid sinn a bhuain na mònach’ ‘s an stereo suas / summer’s night. Classic tunes on the stereo!
I spoke to Kenny Matheson, a farmer with connections to the area that go back a long way, and asked if he’d ever heard of a croft or a farm of any sort on this road.
He had. Kenny described the remnants of a worked area on the right hand side of the cattle-grid and near the old water station. He said that they used to cut hay there, to his memory. You can still see the green shadows of these places among the heath on the satellite images. There is quite a lot of dyke by the river. Kenny mentioned buildings that were there, on the left as you climb, ‘quite a bit’, according to Kenny, now becoming visible again as the plantation of trees is felled.
He said that the Càrn na h-Innseig had been an old hill track and that it was tarred at some time, most probably as the Duke of Gloucester had the shooting rights on the hill. He remembers that the council before the 12th of August every year would patch up the potholes.
The first edition OS map in 1876 confirms what Kenny Matheson said. Culcairn (Cùl Càirn - back of the cairn) is marked. Some of the enclosure walls of the fields are mapped. Lynroich is given by local informant Cumming as Lòn Fhraoich - marshy meadow of heather, or similar - King has Loinne Riabhach in his ‘Place-name notes and Essays of Charles M Robertson’. Allt Gogach (the wavering stream) runs by it. It would seem to be an island of worked land on a high moor road.
They have all vanished from the map come the survey in 1900.
The forestry roads almost cut through the little that remains of this site today.
Culcairn - one story thatched farm house in very bad repair
Lynroich - moderate farm house with suitable offices attatched, thatched, in indifferent repair (1876-8)
green shadows & faint names- satellite / OS crossover
Willie Forbes at Milton of Farr did some collecting in the 1980s. The details about the ‘Càrn na h-Innseig’ name he obtained from Angaidh/Angus Dunbar, Invereen. According to him there was a croft bearing the name of Innseag. There was also a marker cairn at some point. Willie Forbes says his father spoke about ‘the monument’ (a cairn of stones) at the side of the Càrn na h-Innseig road - at the highest point, he believes. He has not located it with any certainty.
A bit of digital digging cast up a song, in which this croft of ‘Innseag’ is mentioned. It was published in a collection of poems and songs in English and Gaelic in 1821, compiled by an Alexander MacKay, butler at Moyhall.
It’s a great bit social history, irreverent and warm. ‘Oran do Dhòmhnall Mac an Tòisich a bha ann an Cuig na Fearna ach a-nis anns an Dail Tomaich’ / A song for Dòmhnall Mac an Tòisich who was in Còignafearn, but now in Dail Tomaich' set to the tune of ‘Tha Cheapach na Fàsach’. The bard having gone to visit his friend in Strathnairn, where his people were from, presumably taking this hill road, fails to meet with him altogether. He then writes 10 stanzas of a praise poem for want of an occasion. We should revive this practise!
He tells of his scarlet hoes, fine tartan coat, kilt, sword and gun, his fanciability, his good company, his excellent whistling ‘Bidh agad topa na feadail’ and sings his praises for the size of one legendary stag he took off the Monadh Liath.
The third stanza from the end makes mention of the Innseag as a place for provisions and conviviality.
“Nuair a thèid sinn don Innseag
Bidh sinn cìnnteach gu leòr
às a rud a bhios feumail
airson an fheum a bhios oirnn;
Bidh gach nì a bhios taitneach,
Ga chuir gu pailt dhuinn air bòrd,
’s cha bhi cuimhn’ ann air gainne,
na feum air dram à taigh-òsd’.”
“When we go to the Innseag
We’ll be sure enough
of that which is useful
for the need that we’ll have;
Everything that is pleasing
will be set plentifully on the table,
and there will be no memory of want,
or need of a dram from an inn.”
This is the Innseag that lends its name to Càrn na h-Innseig.
field boundary stones from culcairn, Càrn loch na leitir behind
These trees or their parents are mapped on the OS 1876-8 map.
