Strath & Strathaird
Principal Sources
Estate Rentals, Museum of the Isles, Armadale
GD 221.40 1774
GD 221.132
GD 221.4270.3
GD 221.4284.1, 2
RMS III (134) 1516-17, (2065) 1539-40, (2739) 1542
RMS VII (1449, 1514) 1616
RMS VIII (1183) 1628
RRS V, I (108) 1557 20m Straithwordill
RSS I (1532) 1507
Argyll Retours (76) 1664
Inverness Retours (14) 1603, (28) 1615, (88) 1662, (94) 1664
Ross & Cromarty Retours (175) 1598
E771/1/1 Rental of 1754 for Strathaird.
C Fraser-Mackintosh, Excerpta e Sasinarum Registris Vice-comitatum de Inverness, Vol III No 177, 1833; Vol V No 123, 1847.
Macfarlane’s Geographical Collections II p 583
Rev D Lamont, Strath: In Isle of Skye, Glasgow, 1913
I have no information about either davachs or ouncelands in Strath – only merklands. However the number of pennylands given in the rentals are pretty consistent. Excluding Aird, but including Lochnadale, they are:
1738 (101d), 1740 (99½d), 1741 (100d), 1743 (97¼d), 1747 (95d) 1748 (94d), 1751 (96d), 1774 (96d). The 1833 sasine gives 101d excluding Strathaird. It is clear that Strath was 5 ouncelands or 100d. Aird was another 25d making 6¼ ouncelands in total. However if we deduct 5d for Kinlochnadale which was really in Sleat we end up with exactly 6 ouncelands or 120d. I find 120½d between Strath and Strathaird.
A peculiarity about Strath is that pennylands are here referred to as single or double. This extends to Kinlochnadale which is geographically in Sleat.
Scalpay, with its associated properties on Skye, was a 4m unit (or 20d ounceland) which seems to have come to the Mackinnons in the seventeenth century. The Scalpay estate included Torrin, Skinidin and Strollamus.
We have virtually no information for Strathaird before the eighteenth century. However we do have David Bruce’s Judicial Rental of 1754 (E771/1/1). I find the following total values given for Strathaird:
25d in 1738 and 1747, 20d in 1748, 25½d in 1754.
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