Today’s post considers the evidence of social, economic and agricultural change provided by the landscape in south east Sutherland. Once you get your eye in, it is possible to identify pre-clearance field systems, townships, houses and barns, head dykes and gardens. The next layer of the archaeological palimpsest are the new arrangements of land and settlement introduced in the early nineteenth century. In this area there is not only the more famous crofting landscape, but also that of the big commercial farms which are such a feature along the fertile strip of the east coast. This twelve minute video thinks about what landscape changes in south east Sutherland can tell us.
Sources:
R. Houston, ‘The Clearances in South East Sutherland’ in J. Baldwin (ed), Firthlands of Ross and Sutherland (Edinburgh, 1986)
S.J.T. Robertson and R.G. Park, Abandoned Buildings of the Evelix Valley (Dornoch: Historylinks Museum, 2009)
historylinksdornoch 