Historylinks Museum

Blog for the Historylinks museum in Dornoch, Highlands of Scotland

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Fàilte Friends!

Welcome to the blog for the the Historylinks museum!

We are a small independent museum based in the Royal Burgh of Dornoch, in county Sutherland, Scotland.

The history of this village goes all the way back to Picts and beyond!

Our job here at Historylinks is to tell you about the long and colourful history if this historic Burgh. From the mighty Vikings, to the awe-inspiring tale of St.Gilbert and the dragon, the witch burnings and golfing royalty, Dornoch has always been a place of great happenings!

Enjoy the these tales through our blog or come and visit us in person at

Historylinks Museum The Meadows Dornoch Sutherland Scotland IV25 3SF

www.historylinks.org.uk

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The Dornoch Coat of Arms

When a Scottish town or city becomes a royal burgh, they are granted the right to have a coat of arms to be represented by. Dornoch was made a royal burgh in 1628.

Dornoch's coat of arms is intricate and complex, with rich symbolism.

The cat - The is on the coat of arms, isn't just any ordinary cat, it's a Scottish Wild Cat, small but feisty. The cat emblem comes from the legend of the origin of settlement in the Dornoch area. When centuries ago, people came to the area to make their lives here, they were apparently set upon by blood thirsty wild cats, and it was only having defeated these wild cats that humans could now inhabit the area.

The Shield with 3 stars - This is the heraldic coat of arms for Earls of Sutherland, who controlled Dornoch and the surrounding area for centuries.

The horse shoe - The name "Dornoch" derives from the Scottish Gaelic word for horseshoe or horse foot: "Dorneich" .

Without Fear - This is the motto of the Earls of Sutherland. Usually it is seen in French as "Sans Peur" .

Today, the Dornoch coat of arms is mostly used by the Royal Dornoch Golf Club and can be seen on their club house and on their website.

Tìoraidh!

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Doing Time in Dornoch Jail

While Dornoch is indeed a small town in the Highlands of Scotland, it was once the judicial centre of most of the county of Sutherland. As such, Dornoch was where the court and jail of the area was situated.

But originally, there was no "jail", as we know it today, in Dornoch. There was the Tolbooth. In Scotland, the tolbooth was initially a booth in the marketplace where tolls were collected, for example, fines for crimes or misdemeanors. Hence the name tolbooth, because it was a toll booth. Later on, it develops into what would essentially be a small prisons, with equally small courts attached, often placed in the middle of town. Dornoch's old tolbooth stood near where the markets were once held, on the High street, near where the Mercat (market) Cross stands.

Conditions would have been terrible in the tolbooth. The cells were cramped and dark, with no access to water. There was no seperation between criminals, or between men women and children (yes child could be put in prison at this time).

In the early 1800's, the tolbooth would be demolished as part of an improvement plan for the town centre. The prisoners would be temporarily housed in Dornoch Castle whilst a new court and jail would be built on the opposite side of the Cathedral grounds.

The new jail and courthouse were finished in 1840, after 2 years of construction. The new and improved jail would have 11 cell regular cell, 2 rooms for civil prisoners(debtors), an infirmary, an exercise space and accommodation for the jail keeper. Criminals were now separated by gender and by crime. Some debtors were allowed to conduct business from their cells to help them pay off their debts.

Of course, despite being a shiny new jail, which was of much higher quality of living for the prisoners, the whole point of prison was punishment. Many would find themselves facing various forms of hard labour during their stay. The Crank was regularly used to keep prisoners working throughout the day. The crank was a barrel filled with sand. Inside would be 3 scoops that were attached to a crank handle on the outside. Prisoners would spend hours and hours, turning this crank, pushing the scoops through the sand, which created massive resistance. It is said that if prison officers didn't like a particular prisoner, they would tighten the screws on the crank, just to make it that bit harder to turn the handle.

Punishments for badly behaved prisoners included a reduction in rations, solitary confinement, being restrained in irons, or being kept in the dark for long periods of time.

There was a difference in how the genders were treated in their time in the jail. A great example of this is in what they were fed. Men tended to be fed worse food, such as oat gruel. Women and children were given meat and dairy to supplement their diets.

The jail only functioned as a working prison for about 30 years before it was shut down. The local government decided it was not worth the money to keep it running, with so few prisoners.

Today, Dornoch Jail is now a shop that sells fine Scottish clothes and jewellery from the very same cells that once held the criminals of Sutherland.

Tìoraidh!

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The Bishop's Palace / Dornoch Castle

Initially known as the "Bishop's Palace", this impressive residence was built to house the bishops of Caithness and Sutherland. The 'palace' was built directly next to the Catherdral, we assume because the bishop liked to be close to work.

Sadly, we don't know very much about the original building. In a siege on the castle in 1570, the documents pertaining to the first building were destroyed. We presume that it was built sometime in the 13th to 14th Century. The earliest record we have of the in relation to the castle is from a Charter in 1557, in which the Bishop Robert basically hands over to the castle to the Earls of Sutherland while he makes then Constables of Dornoch. It would stay in the Sutherland family for the next 400 years.

Soon after the Charter was written, the castle came under siege. The ongoing power struggle between the Earl of Caithness and the Earl of Sutherland came to a head in 1570. As a result, the Earl of Caithness sent his men to attack the village. The people of Dornoch held out for over a week inside the castle walls, before the castle was finally captured and damaged by the invaders.

There isn't very much left of the original castle today, mostly a single tower, a chimney stack, part of the courtyard, and the cellars. 500 years ago, there were 3 towers protecting a full inner courtyard and residential buildings.

For a brief period in the early 1800's, the castle tower was home to the local court, the jail and surprising a school! That must have been a little cramped! Eventually, a new courthouse and jail were build as an attachment on the north side of the castle, and the school relocated to elsewhere in the town.

Sold to become a hotel in 1947, it has remained a hotel ever since. You can now come and have a drink in the Dornoch Castle Bar, and stay the night in one of the original castle bedrooms (as long as you don't mind sharing a room with a ghost or two!).

Tìoraidh!

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Silver Darlings and the Herring Girls

From the early 1800's to the mid 1900's, Scotland experienced the "Herring Boom". This was when fishing became industrialised and herring fish were plentiful in the seas surrounding Britain.

Fishing boats got bigger, the fish hauls got bigger, and appetite for herring got bigger. This became the era of the "Silver Darlings", which was the name given to the profitable herring.

What came about was a kind of yearly fishing cycle that followed the coast. Starting in May, the fishing boats hauled fish up and around the north coast, ending the season in December in the southeast coast of England. Men would go out on the fishing boats, netting the large shoals of herring in the north sea, when they would take them to the many fishing ports and leave the haul with the "Herring Girls".

The herring had to be gutted and preserved before it could be sent either down south to be sold in cities, or across to mainland Europe, such as Germany and Russia, to be sold there. To keep the fish as fresh as possible, the needed to be preserved immediately. Women were employed to take the freshly caught fish and gut them, then pack them into salt filled barrels. Herring had to be packed within 24 hours of being caught, if not they would start to rot.

The girls, sometimes as young as 15, were known for their speed and efficiency at preparing the herring for sale, which made them in high demand at port towns and villages. They would often work in groups of 3, with 2 girls gutting the fish, and 1 girl packing the fish into the slat barrels. The fastest Herring girls were known to pack a full barrel of fish in about 15 minutes! This was important as the girls were paid by the barrel.

As the fishermen chased the herring shoals around the coast, the women would also travel from port to port, to be ready when the haul would be taken to shore. Many former Herring Girls talked about the independence that this kind of work afforded them, both through having their own money separate from either their husbands or male relatives, and through the travelling they would undertake to follow the herring boats. These women often made lifelong friendships through the herring industry and made communities with each other during the season.

Sadly, by the 1950's herring had been overfished, leaving not enough shoals to continue with largescale fishing, as well as herring no longer being as popular to eat.

Today in Scotland, the Herring Girls are remembered fondly, and have since become the icons of the golden age of fishing in Britain, when they were once completely overlooked.

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Tales of the Fishwives

Being made up of hundreds of islands, Scotland has an expansive coastline. As a result, there has always been a tradition of fishing, both in the seas and the many lochs.

But fishing only became an industrial enterprise in Scotland after the Highland Clearances, where many folks were cleared off of their farming lands to make way for profitable sheep farming. This resulted in many Scots being pushed to the coastlines, where many villages sprung up as people turned from farming to fishing to make their living. Embo, is one such fishing village, just north of Dornoch.

Initially, the 3 main kinds of fish caught were haddock, herring and cod. But herring were soon found to be so ridiculously numerous off the shores of Scotland, they became the main target for fishermen. They were given the nickname of "the Silver Darlings", due to how profitable they became.

While the act of fishing itself was usually a man only affair, the fishing industry could not have been so successful if it weren't for the women working on the shore. Women were the ones responsible for baiting the lines and nets used by the fishermen out at sea, using mussels and lug worms they had dug up on the beach. If there was no proper dock for the boats, women would carry the men on their backs to the fishing boats in the shallows, so that the fishermen would not get wet! The fish that would then be brought in, would be processed and preserved by the wives and daughters of the fishermen. These "Fishwives" would then take the fish in creels (large woven baskets carried on the back) and travel to sell or barter the caught fish. This became even more lucrative once the railroads were built across the highlands in the mid 1800's.

Every heard the term "gossiping like fishwives"? Well the fish wives would often get the local news as they traveled around selling and bartering their fish, which was seen as 'gossiping'.

At the time, the fishwives were seen as course and rough women, often looked down upon by others, who saw them as mannish and unfeminine. But these women had to be tough to do what they did. They had to be physically very strong, to haul both their men and the boats in and out of the water, and to carry the large fishing creels upon their backs and travel for miles. They were also smart and brave, both in terms of being able to barter and count the money they made, but to travel alone in the country side carrying their valuable fish and the money they made from the fish. They had a reputation as women who were not to be messed with! And they did all this while raising a family and running the household!

Tìoraidh!

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The Miracles of St Gilbert

We've talked about about how Gilbert de Moravia became the Bishop of Caithness and built the cathedral that stands in the centre of Dornoch today. But how exactly did Gilbert come to be a saint?

For those of you who aren't Catholic or simply don't know, traditionally someone needed to preform at least 3 miracles to become canonised (be declared a saint by the Catholic church).

Gilbert met all those requirements and more, preforming miracles large and small.

One year, the salmon run didn't arrive as it usually did in autumn, and the rivers and lochs were empty of fish. This left the local fishermen and their communities starving. Gilbert went down to the bank and washed his hands in the water. Suddenly, fish in their droves started to flood into the rivers and fill up the lochs. Sadly, where exactly Gilbert washed his hands has been lost to time.

When Gilbert was made Bishop in 1224 he commenced the building of the cathedral, it is said that he picked up tools, such as chisels and hammers, and threw them into the air. As if by magic, the tools began the construction of the building by themselves!

But building did not go smoothly. Part way through construction, a dragon swept into Dornoch, killing many locals and those who were working on cathedral. Gilbert wasn't having this, and after blessing an arrow, shot it straight into the heart of the beast.

Gilbert would preform other smaller miracles, such as praying for a mute man to speak again and reversing a burnt account book to it's former, unburnt state, but the fish, the building and the dragon were the main miracles that saw Gilbert upgraded from Bishop to Saint. He is the last Scottish saint to be added to the Calendar of Saints. (Not to be mistaken for St Gilbert of Sempringham!)

Tìoraidh!

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Donald Ross - Dornoch's most famous son

For those of you who know golf, play the sport or love the history behind the sport, you probably already know the name of Donald Ross.

He was born on the 23rd of November in 1872, in a small house on St Gilbert street in Dornoch. As a young man, like many his age, he played golf as a hobby on his local golf course, right here at the Royal Dornoch. He turned out to have talent on the green. This, along with his apprenticeship in joinery, made him a successful career at making golf clubs, which he learned to make at the heart of the golfing world in St. Andrews, Scotland.

Donald made a decent living from making clubs for the Dornoch Golf Club and giving golfing lessons on the side. However, life changed drastically for Donald when he emigrated to the US in 1899, arriving with only $2 and settling down in Watertown, Massachusetts. It was here that Donald would go on to make a name for himself as the most sought after golf course designer in America.

He started with his new local green at Oakley Country Club, before being commissioned to design a course at Pinehurst. Thus Donald's career as a designer of golf courses began, seeing him travelling from east coast to west coast, covering 31 states from Canada to Cuba. Over the next 40 years, he designed nearly 600 gold courses. Between designing the courses, Donald continued to play in golf tournaments, travelling south to play in winter months and north during the summer.

Despite his new life in America, and gaining American citizenship in 1921, Donald remained a Dornoch lad at heart. Throughout his life, he would return to Dornoch with his family, spending summers in his home town.

Donald Ross will always be fondly remembered as Dornoch's first "Golf Professional". Last year, we were delighted to see some of Donald Ross's original golf clubs returned to Dornoch, where they now live in our museum. You can come and see them for yourself along with the rest of our Donald Ross collection!

Tìoraidh!

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Wrong end of the Horse Leg!

From the 800's through to the 1200's, there was a continuous tension between the invading Norse Vikings and the native Scottish/Pictish population. The Norse has conquered almost the entire north of Scotland, becoming Earls of Caithness, the Hebrides and the Orkney Isles.

This pagan invasion didn't sit well with the Christian locals, and a fierce struggle broke out for control over the north.

One such clash was the Battle of Embo. Embo is located just over 3 miles north of Dornoch. Sometime in either the 1240's or the 1260's, a group of Danes had set up camp on the shores of the Dornoch firth, at a place called Littleferry. William de Moravia, the 1st Earl of Sutherland, decided to take things into his own hands, and sent Richard de Moravia (brother of St. Gilbert and likely William's cousin) to deal with these pesky incomers. His plan was to have Richard keep the Danes occupied in battle while he roused his own, much larger army to fight.

The scheme worked, Richard successfully keeping the Danes in place while William brought his own army, though not before Richard was tragically killed during the fighting. But Richard's noble sacrifice was not the most remembered thing about this battle!

According to legend, the Danish army fled the battlefield when William de Moravia, having lost his weapon in the fight, picked up a severed horse leg and beat their leader to death with it!

Thus the area was solidified as Scottish land, not Norse land. Today there stands monument on the site where the Battle of Embo supposedly took place (even though it's closer to Dornoch than to Embo!).

Richard de Moravia was immortalised by his cousin, with a beautifully carved sarcophagus made in his likeness, in the Cathedral commissioned by his brother Gilbert. You can still see what has survived of his effigy today in the Dornoch Cathedral.

And that, my friends, is how a severed horse leg saved the day!

Tìoraidh!

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Sutherland Chairs

Are you sitting comfrotably?

Here in Sutherland, we have a particular chair where we are most comfortable. That is the imaginatively named Sutherland chair.

Made uniquely in the counties of Sutherland and Caithness(where they are called Caithness chairs), these chairs of part of a very specific highland culture.

What makes them so special, is that their shape comes entirely from the two pieces of L-shaped wood on both sides of the chair. The pieces of wood have to be naturally L-shaped and cannot be carved into the right shape. These twin pieces are then joined with rails and boards and short legs set into the bottom.

Here's a wee one for small children to sit on!

The chairs are low to the ground. This is because in the 18th to the 20th Century, when these chairs were most commonly used, most common folk would be using peat to fuel their fires, which produced large amounts of smoke that would hang around their poorly ventilated houses. The low chair meant that people could sit underneath the smelly layer of peat smoke.

Tìoraidh!

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St Gilbert and the Cathedral

If you visit Dornoch, the most notable feature of this beautiful village is the compact but stunning St Gilbert's Cathedral. This was both the physical and spiritual centre of Dornoch for centuries.

The building of the Cathedral was began the same year that Gilbert de Movaria (anglicised to Murray) was made the Bishop of Caithness in 1224. Gilbert was quick to move the seat of the diocese from Halkirk, an area where historically his family found much conflict and death, to Dornoch, which was bang in the middle of land he personally owned, as well as being practically next door to his cousin in Golspie.

However the building that we see today in the village centre is not what Gilbert himself would have seen. The original was completed nearly 800 years ago, just shortly after Gilbert's death in 1245. In the centuries since, it has had several make-overs, either through expansion or destruction.

Local clan feuds resulted in an attempt to set the cathedral aflame in 1567. But worse came 3 years later, when conflict between the Earls of Sutherland and the Earls of Caithness saw Caithness send his allies, Mackay of Strathnaver and Sutherland of Duffus and their men to sack the village. The roof of the cathedral was burnt down completely and the tomb of St Gilbert was destroyed, leaving the cathedral in utter ruin.

In 1622, the cathedral was partly rebuilt by Sir Robert Gordon, only for it to fall to ruin once again shortly after in the 1650's during the Civil war between the Royalists and the Puritans. 1710's to the 1730's sees the cathedral rebuild, only for disaster to strike a third time! Jacobites in the 1745 uprising briefly occupy Dornoch and supposedly use the cathedral to stable their horses while they damage important buildings in the village. 1769 and the cathedral is once again a ruin. For the final time the cathedral is rebuilt in the 1770's, and aside from some upgrades here and there, is the same building you now see today.

St Gilbert's cathedral has a long and brutal history, but did you know that the first time it was under threat was when it was still being build? And by a dragon no less! But that's a post for another time.

Tìoraidh!