Am Bratach No. 189
July 2007
editor@bratach.co.uk

History File
by Malcolm Bangor-Jones

Eddrachillis was formerly part of the very extensive parish of Durness and was only set aside as a new entity with its own minister in the mid 1720s. A new church had been built and the lands of Easter Badcall (now Lower Badcall) were formally designated as the minister’s glebe by the presbytery of Tongue in 1731.

As the eighteenth century progressed, ministers looked for a higher standard of living. Many devoted a good deal of care and attention to their farms and leased additional land. When Alexander Falconer became minister of Eddrachillis in 1763 he not only enjoyed the glebe but also took possession of Wester Badcall (now Upper Badcall). He retained possession until his death in 1802.

By the 1820s the boundaries of the glebe were not entirely clear and there were contrary opinions as to which lands belonged to the glebe and which belonged to Wester Badcall. An investigation was made in 1827.

Lachlan Morrison, an 80-year old tenant in Scourie More, testified that when about aged twelve he had been employed as Falconer’s cattle herd. The grazing of Bad nam Mult belonged to Badcall, and the cattle of Geisgil were poinded if they “passed the dyke”. However, Lachlan did not know whether Falconer possessed the grazing as glebe or as part of his lands in tack.

William Abrach, a 64-year old tenant in Scourie More, had lived in his father’s house at Geisgil for twenty years, leaving it in 1790 when he went to Kylestrome where he was a tenant for eighteen years before presumably being cleared to Scourie More.

William admitted that the minister claimed Badnamault but maintained that the tenants of Geisgill “considered they also had a right there, having often heard an old report that Badnamoult once belonged to Giesgill.” From “Loch Badnamault down towards the sea there is a continuance of the boundary Dyke, which goes out by the top of Knocknacraigdarroch thence to the sea, and that all that pendicle betwixt and the water of Giesgill was possessed by the Giesgill tenants.”

William was satisfied that the minister was in possession of all he could claim, “otherwise from his tenaceousness, the Declarant is sure he the Minister would not have passed it — no not even if he thought he wanted a foot of it.”

Hector Morrison, a 63-year old tenant in Wester Badcall, had lived there since 1815, having previously been a tenant at Foindle. According to Hector, in 1815 Falconer’s successor, the Rev James Mackenzie, and the tenants of Wester Badcall, had appointed two former tenants in Wester Badcall, James Morrison in Scourie and Donald Mackay in Duartmore, to point out the marches between their respective arable lands.

The “Grass Marches” or boundaries of the grazings had not been dealt with. Donald Mackay had told Hector that when his father was a tenant in Wester Badcall, “his Mother was on the Shieling of Arrie Eaver with their Cattle when he was born, and that said Shieling totally belonged to Wester Badcaul.” However, as Hector explained, in about 1821 or 22, the minister had allowed Robert Mackay, now tenant in Achriesgill, to take his cattle from Scourie to graze on “Arrie Ever”.

The tenants of Wester Badcall considered that the minister had had no right to grant such permission and they had only allowed it because the sheep farmers, “Messrs Munro & Reed having got possession of the whole or nearly so of the Scoury Shielings, and that the Scoury Tenants were understood to coggraze with the Wester Badcaul Tenants on their Shieling, and the said Robt. Mackay was permitted to retain said Shieling for that year as a tenant in Rhiany, a part of Scoury, and in no respect as being authorised by the Minister of Badcaul.”

This was confirmed by Hugh Ross, a 54-year old tenant in Scourie village. Hugh was “satisfied if Mr Falconer had wanted any of his rights in grass or otherwise he was not the man to pass it over - no not if he had ever been to the extent of a yard”.

The situation was not to be tolerated although it was not to be remedied quickly. A survey was made of the 320 acre glebe, lands were exchanged, and the boundaries eventually declared by the court of session in 1851.