Luss & Arrochar
Principal Sources
J Irving, The Book of Dumbartonshire, Vol II, Edinburgh, 1879, pp 238-267 (Luss)
J Irving, The Book of Dumbartonshire, Vol II, Edinburgh, 1879, pp 267-277 (Arrochar)
Old Statistical Account (Arrochar) by Rev John Gillespie, Vol 3 No LXIII pp 430-437, 1792
Old Statistical Account (Luss) by Rev John Stuart, Vol 17 No XVII pp 238-271, 1796
RMS II (187) 1430-1, (679) 1458-9, (1274) 1476-7, (1901), 1489
RMS VI (272) 1595
AS I (128-130) 1621, (212) 1622, (479) 1673
AS II (75) 1619, (130) 1621, (151, 152) 1622, (164) 1623, (185) 1625, (530) 1634, (697) 1642, (716) 1643, (734) 1644, (762-3) 1648, (776) 1650, (854) 1654, (981) 1658, (1082) 1663, (1149, 1158) 1664, (1266) 1666, (1338) 1667, (1519) 1669, (1530) 1669, (1539) 1670
RSS II (4357) 1541
GD1/755/12 1685
GD22/1/511 1659
GD86/233 1572
GD220/1/J/5/2/1 1705, GD220/1/J/5/2/2 1720
GD220/2/1/31 1384
GD220/2/1/34 & 35 1392
NRAS3544/2/77 1541, NRAS3544/2/78 1543, NRAS3544/2/80 1547, NRAS3544/2/81 1548, NRAS3544/2/87 1619
RHP 9096 Plan of proposed canal 1821
RHP 9097 Plan of Muir of Leachlaran 1775
RHP 9098 Plan of Duchlage farm 1824
RHP 9158 Plan of Arrochar churchyard 1774
Retours (Dumbarton) (25) 1625, (53) 1655, (57) 1662, (69) 1676, (71) 1680, (78) 1685
Retours (Stirling) (276) 1676
W Fraser, The Chiefs of Colquhoun and their Country, Vols I & II, Edinburgh, 1869
W Fraser, Cartulary of Colquhoun, Edinburgh, 1873
JC Stone, The Pont Manuscript Maps of Scotland, Tring, 1989
Luss and Arrochar give us plenty of evidence for arachors but very real problems in trying to match what went on here with land-assessment in the rest of Lennox.
In much of Lennox it appears that an arachor or a carucate was worth £20 or 30m. Arrochar, which was one arachor, is given as £40 (60m) in NRAS3544/2/77 1541, NRAS3544/2/80 1547, NRAS3544/2/87 1619, AS II (75) 1619, (716) 1643 & (1530) 1669. Luss, which, in the thirteenth-century documents, was assessed as two arachors, is given as £80 (120m) in 1591 (Fraser, Chiefs of Colquhoun, Vol. I, p 149). Now, we must always distinguish between the use of these names to describe physically compact parishes and their use to describe large and sometimes dispersed estates. However such a caveat applies more to Luss than to Arrochar and we are left with the possibility that an arachor in Luss and Arachor was assessed at £40 rather than £20. On the one hand it seems unlikely that Luss and Arrochar should behave differently to their neighbours, on the other hand the evidence, incomplete though it is, is problematic. I have not managed to resolve this issue.
The table gives us 63m 3s 8d for Luss and another 31½m (possibly 46½m) for Arrochar. The gaps in the land-assessment record make it difficult to pin down the total value of each parish. It also has to be remembered that the oldest parish of Luss may have been considerably smaller. I suspect that an older, separate parish unit based on Glen Fruin had been effectively dissolved by the middle of the thirteenth century.
Leave a Reply