Auchindrain - More about us

The first documentary references to Achadh an Droighinn/Auchindrain are from the early

16th century. By that time it was clearly an established settlement. It is probably never

going to be possible to say when exactly the township was established, but its location

on the relatively high and poor ground of the watershed between two rivers, the “field

of....” in its name, and its nearness to the former township site of Braleckan – Bràigh

Leacann – to the south, suggests that it may very well have been founded through a late

medieval “splitting” of the Braleckan township as a result of population growth. The

“splitting” process that created new townships has been well documented elsewhere.

From the early 1500s to the 1770s, almost nothing is known about Auchindrain other

than the identities of successive owners or principal tenants, and the names of some of

the township’s people where they appear in court cases and legal documents. The

reality is that it was just another township, one of thousands spread across Scotland

although perhaps most particularly in the Highlands, Islands and Galloway. As such, it was arguably typical in its lack of

remarkability.

Things changed in 1776 when the Duke of Argyll reacquired the township – his family had owned the land in previous centuries but

possession had then gone elsewhere. Auchindrain is included in a list of all those living on the Duke’s land produced in 1779, and

the Duke and his Chamberlain (factor) were early enthusiasts for the principles of agricultural improvement that were then becoming

current. In 1789, the surveyor George Langlands, who was responsible for a great deal of survey, mapping and agricultural

improvement in Argyll, prepared a plan for the township to be rebuilt and reorganised into crofts. This plan was, however, not

implemented, probably because the investment required on the part of the Duke of Argyll would not have justified the financial

return.

That was not, however, the end of the story, and in the years following 1789 the community adopted some elements of improved

agriculture, no doubt with the active encouragement and support of the Dukes of Argyll as landowners. Firstly, within the period

1790-1840 there was a major rebuilding of the township, in stone. Previous township practice had been to construct building walls

very substantially of turf, but this was felt to be destructive of good agricultural land as well as wastefully labour-intensive because a

turf-walled building had a life of twenty to thirty years before major reconstruction was required. From around 1800, landowners

generally were encouraging or insisting upon building in stone.

This major rebuilding also brought changes to the layout and nature of the buildings, illustrated by a comparison between the

existing settlement shown underlying Langlands’ reconstruction proposals in 1789, and the First Edition Ordnance Survey for the area, from

1871. One key difference appears to have been a move to align dwellings approximately north-south along their length so that they

were end-on to the prevailing wind through the valley in which Auchindrain stands. Another was to construct a number of threshing

barns aligned approximately east-west along their length, or in other words set across the wind, and with a pair of opposing doors in

their long sides to create a through-draft for winnowing. This arrangement is characteristic of the early period of agricultural

improvement. At some point during this period, the township’s corn kiln went out of use and was rebuilt as a byre and store.

Despite these changes, the township’s buildings still offer the eye a random arrangement, within which one is not aligned to another

and where the spacing between them follows no pattern. There was actually a sound basis for the location of buildings, which used

a mix of old occupation sites, the tops of glacial mounds and locations to wet or uneven for easy cultivation so that the best land to

work was left for growing crops. As a result, even after this major rebuilding the township still retained much of the character of

previous centuries: this was obviously what Queen Victoria was coming to see when, in September 1875, the Duke of Argyll brought

her to visit the “primitive villages” of Auchindrain and, nearby, Achnagoul.

Another major change was a general move from cattle to sheep as the township’s primary agricultural product. This involved the

abandonment of the township’s two shielings, which lie close to the Douglas Water around half a day’s walk from the main

settlement and which were marked on Langlands’ plan from 1789 as Àirigh Seileach, Sheiling of the Willows, and Àirigh Dearg, the

Red Sheiling: in the new husbandry, they were no longer necessary. It also meant the construction, on the high ground immediately

west of the main settlement, of a substantial stone-built fank, in Gaelic faing, or sheepfold. Other than being able to say that design

features of the fank indicate that it predates the 1870s and that it is shown on the 1871 Ordnance Survey, it is not known when the

change from cattle to sheep took place.

The final major change was the abandonment of runrig, and the enclosure of the arable land into a series of small fields allocated on

what appears to have been a reasonably permanent basis to individual tenants: documentary evidence of this does not exist before

1892, but is likely to have taken place several decades before then. These fields show considerable evidence of improvement –

drainage has been introduced, and, unlike some closely-adjacent land that was part of the former Braleckan township, all visible

remains of the rigs has over the years been ploughed out.

As noted, it is not possible to say with any certainty when, within the period between 1789 and 1871, these individual changes

actually took place. Equally, it is not clear whether change was a gradual and sequential process, or the product of a single and

relatively brief period involving the major rebuilding, a move from cattle to sheep, and enclosure and subdivision of the arable land.

Either way, however, by the 1870s Auchindrain was operating as a sheep farm with a flock of around 650 animals, whilst still

keeping a limited number of cattle.

Through all this change, what made Auchindrain different was that the township remained a joint tenancy, as indeed it remained until

the end in 1962 - between the 1890s and 1937 the number of tenants reduced to one, and for the last 25 years it was just that one

tenant held all the “shares”. This is highly unusual, and indeed no other comparable location has yet been identified – even at

Achnagoul, three miles from Auchindrain and the other “primitive village” visited by Queen Victoria in 1875, the late 19th century

documentary evidence indicates the presence of individual tenancies. One of the key elements of agricultural improvement was the

ending of joint tenancies and runrig which were felt to be inefficient and unproductive, and the enclosure of arable land either as

single-tenant farms or individual tenancies as crofts. At Auchindrain, enclosure and apportionment of the arable land appears to

have taken place by agreement between the tenants and within the ongoing framework of the joint tenancy, and presumably on the

basis that it simply represented a more efficient way of working the land. Interestingly, however, each tenant had at least two fields,

generally one on the east and one on the west side of the valley, where growing and ground conditions were different. This to an

extent preserved the notional basis of runrig, which was that everyone should have an equal chance at the best and the worst land.

It is truly remarkable that at Auchindrain the joint tenancy survived both the move to sheep farming and enclosure of the arable land.

It seems likely that this was a major reason why the nature and layout of the township’s buildings remained relatively unchanged.

The absence of individual tenancies, which elsewhere often incorporated a requirement that the tenant should live on the land,

resulted in there being no incentive to build new houses and barns away from the township’s historical core. This, in turn, was not

allocated to any one individual, meaning that the tenants as a group managed the area within which stood the township’s buildings.

All of this will have acted to discourage change by eliminating the principal factors that might have promoted it. What is not yet

clear, and may never be known, is why, at Auchindrain, given the extent to which a move was made to improved agriculture, the joint

tenancy survived. The reality, however, is that it did, with the consequence being that through the course of the 19th century the

physical form of the township became to a certain extent fossilised, in the process preserving a settlement that remains reasonably

close to its origins as a pre-improvement township.

Auchindrain What is a Township? ABOUT:

Agricultural improvements and Change The Significance of Auchindrain The Evolution of Auchindrain