Local Place-Names (Houses, Hills, Fields et al)

[MacIlleDhuibh]

Feasgar math a h-uile duine!

Before I begin, I'd like to underline that the purpose of this request is to eventually make it easier for individuals to track down their ancestors and understand the landscape, society and culture in which they lived.

I'm a researcher from Inverness who is seeking to gather as many local place names from the city itself and the areas immediately surrounding the city that are either forgotten, have fallen out of use or have gone unrecorded. I'm particularly interested in old house names, field names of farms/crofts/small-holdings (and the name of said places themselves), the names of old townships, features such as small mounds, streams and rocks - basically anything you can think of that enables us to reconstruct the part of the world in which your ancestors lived.

I've undertaken extensive research through sources ranging from the 1200s to present day and have thus far collected about 300 names which have been mapped as accurately as possible, most of which are of course Gaelic in origin or translated from their original Gaelic.

The reason for this post is that individual's stories of their own families and home-life can precipitate a wider understanding of historic names. For example, having read "Mind Thon Time", a collection of personal reflections of Highlanders both from and living in Inverness, I was able to substantiate and use a process of elimination to pinpoint four historic names to their respective locations in just one area of the city (or historic Highland town and burgh/parish). Not bad for a book of short reflections about what many would disregard as unremarkable story-telling.

Following this logic, it occurred to me that this forum (which I've consulted a number of times for while really testing Google's limits in very specific search queries) is full of individuals who likely know specific corners of Inverness and its surrounding farms, villages etc better than the residents of the city itself.

With this in mind and with the hope that the outcome of my work might help in providing resources for an area which has few detailed map surveys of its lands due to its status as a burgh and not an estate, please share any information you have - be it about Culduthel, Bogbain, Lochardil, Culloden, Dores, Dochgarroch or closer to the centre of the old burgh itself.



In exchange, I am happy to offer free advice, guidance and help relevant to anyone researching family in Inverness and its surrounding environs (being a native of the city myself).

Le gach dùrachd
MacIlleDhuibh

[Hector99]

Hello
I have in my possession a Gaelic Bible that belonged to my GG Grandfather.  The inscription reads
"This Book belongs to me Hector Morison in Newton of Kinkell in An Crea ish  (??) 1830."

His wife spells her name Morrison.

I can find Newton of Kinkell on the Black Isle, but cannot find the next name.  Perhaps your study may come up with something.  Hector Morison/Morrison later moved to Inverness, where he was a Sawyer.

[MacIlleDhuibh]

Hi Hector! Thank you so much for being the first to respond! I'd written an in-depth response to this but it was more than twice the character limit per post. I'll provide it in PDF shortly but will in the meantime summarise:

This is slightly outside my area of focus (but not a problem)
The image provided is obviously of a very old (nearly 200 years?) text - I altered its various 'levels' and characteristics on Photoshop to tease out the extremely faded elements and, coupled with analysis of local Gaelic dialects, land-use, history and local economy, I have concluded that the image states that the book that belongs to one Hector Morison has him living at An Criadh Innis (An Creanish) - the clay field in English. The soil in the area was/is rich in clay and "claypotts" (fields in which clay was extracted for production of clay goods) were very common in the area from the medieval era until the late 1800s.

I'll look further into your ancestors' church/government documents which will be out there but in the meantime I'd be looking for names like Creenish, Creanish, Creaness, Clayfield, Clayinch, Clayinsch etc.

Thank you for responding and I'll update further soon!

All the best!

[Forfarian]

Is Loch Duntelchaig near enough for your purposes?

The reason for asking is because I would like to know the meaning of 'Creag nan Clag' there.

Photos at http://www.geograph.org.uk/search.php?i=214244021

I took it to mean 'rock of the bells' but someone else has told me that according to the 'British Climbing' web site 'clag' is the type or rock making up the crag. I did have a look there but failed to find any such reference, possibly because it was behind a paywall.

Any ideas?

[Hector99]

I am afraid that your suggestion of Loch Dunfelchaig does not look like the place name written in the Bible. 

Google Translate gives Bell Rock for Creag nan Clag.

[Forfarian]

Thank you.

It's Duntelchaig, not Dunfelchaig. It may be too far out of Inverness to feature.

I had got to 'rock of the bells' with the aid of a Gaelic dictionary, and online translation seemed to confirm that. It was the other possible meaning that I couldn't verify.

[MacIlleDhuibh]

Both these locations are outside of Inverness but only a bit outside the modern "metro" area - North Kessock is generally included in Inverness for these purposes as it's just over the Kessock Bridge and is effectively now part of the city - so Kinkell is only about a 10 minute drive from "Inverness" or 15 minutes from Inverness proper.
 
Similarly, the north side of Loch Duntelchaig or Dun Seilcheig (which supplies the water to Inverness, alongside Loch Ashie now to the rapid growth in population) is similarly 'nearby' in that Leys at the south of Inverness is only about 10 minutes drive. But these areas are historically very far apart. 30 minute drive or so today, half a day travelling by horse and cart in the past.

As such, we can safely say Creag nan Clag (which does indeed mean Crag of the Bells) is not the place to referred in the family bible.

If my post from 25th of May gets approved soon, you'll see I've suggested a likely name like Creenish from Criadh-Innis (Clay-field). This would definitely be the direction the poster should be heading.