by Marion Ruscoe When I first started looking at the site of the Saltwater Mill at Petty Bay, I was writing a general survey of industry in Petty Parish (2019).  I discovered that there was very little primary evidence for the mill and access to the site was not easy.  In fact, at the time, I couldn’t see how to get down to the site, since the Castle Stuart Golf Course had taken over the area to the north of the Church and fenced the course in.  It was only when Scape visited in 2022 that I finally managed to see for myself exactly where the mill had been situated.  At that ..read more

From the written evidence of secondary sources and maps on the maps.nls and Scotlandspeople websites by Meryl Marshall Background In the years before the 18th Century the Highlands were regarded as a hostile backward country, travelling was difficult, there were few visitors and many journeys were made by boat. In 1793 George Brown reported that, The most necessary and useful line of road betwixt East and West Sea through the four Northern Counties of Scotland […] is a line across the county of Ross from the town of Dingwall on the head of the Cromarty Firth, to Poolewe on the west coast by C ..read more

by Marion Ruscoe 1st ed. 25” OS map (NLS)  Petty Bay lies approximately 5 miles east of Inverness.  Today it’s bypassed by the A96, but a map of 1798 shows that the original road from Inverness to Ardersier and Fort George looped off the Inverness-Nairn route at Allanfearn and joined the present B9039 at Castle Stuart Farm. The 1st edition 25” Ordnance Survey map indicates a track running down between Castle Stuart and Castle Stuart Farm, and following the coast out to the point. The area was clearly much busier than it is today. The Old Statistical Account (OSA) notes that there are ..read more

by Jonathan Wordsworth The following is an addendum to the previous Carn Glas blog post of July 2023. Drone image of Carn Glas after clearance of gorse looking north to Inverness and Moray Firth ©AHickie It took two more days of work in August to clear the remaining gorse scrub off the cairn to reveal the monument in its glory.  With funding from Historic Environment Scotland we were able to get contractors to shred much of the cut waste, though a substantial amount of gorse remains outside the cairn on the east side. We were fortunate to get Andy Hickie to fly his drone over the cleaned ..read more

by Richard Guest Investigating a possible crannog at Loch Morie, June 2023 Almost three years has passed since the inception of the NOSAS Crannogs project, one sunny post-lockdown afternoon sitting around my patio maintaining a 2-metre separation, unable to meet inside but mightily pleased to be chatting face to face instead of by zoom.  Who had even heard of zoom before lockdown?  We hatched a cunning plan – to search satellite images for islands which might prove to be unrecorded crannogs.  Surely there must be lots of them, secreted away in remote glens where archaeologists r ..read more

by Roland Spencer-Jones This remote loch is far from any normal vehicular access. The boundary between Attadale and Pait estates runs roughly SW-NE through the middle of the loch. Approach routes to the loch are from Pait on Loch Monar to the NE, Attadale towards the head of Loch Carron in the W, and Killilan via Strath Duilleach and the Iron Lodge to the SW. There are three islands in the loch, two of which are of interest. OS maps showing location of Loch Tachdaidh Historic Environment Scotland’s Canmore (ID 12075) and Highland Council Historic Environment Record (MHG44808 [Causeway] & M ..read more

by Roland Spencer-Jones Does every excavation and discovery have a story behind it? Maybe. This one certainly does. When did the story start? With shepherds moving into empty land in the early 19th century? With the gradual depopulation of Highland glens in the early half of the 20th century? With the construction of the largest dam in Scotland completed in 1952? Maybe it’s best to start this story in early July 2021 with a walker and cyclist, Glenn Wilks, venturing into the remote west end of Loch Mullardoch. This large reservoir loch was created from two previous lochs, Lungard and Mullardoc ..read more

Der kleine Variation: Der Knoten international bietet umfangreich Methoden und Strategien für irgendjemand Planung a Ehe und Denken In welche Richtung soll ich gehen? Das Unternehmen Profil enthält The Knot, WeddingWire, Bodas, sowie anderen respektabel Systeme ausgerichtet auf Liebhaber die nur bekommen beteiligt oder hitched. Zusammen mit 40 Millionen Kunden in 15 Nationen ist The Knot Worldwide tatsächlich führender Markt Influencer, der Käufer mit Hochzeitszeremonie verbindet Experten auf der ganzen Welt. Die USA sind jetzt viel mehr vielfältig ständig, was hat der Gesichtsbereich von Inte ..read more

by Alan Thompson. NOSAS were partners in and major contributors to Scotland’s Rock Art Project (ScRAP) which ran for five years from January 2017 to December 2021.  We enjoyed some very productive field work and learned a lot about prehistoric rock art (sometimes called cup and ring marked rocks) and also about how to run a community-based project. Figure 1 A favourite panel at Fleuchlady This is not an attempt to analyse the rock art in our region or to provide a critique of what was achieved during ScRAP (for that it might be best to download the booklet produced at the end of the proje ..read more

by Susan Kruse Did you know that there are around 100 heritage organisations and over 50 museums in the Highlands – and a number of community trusts and individuals who have heritage projects on the go? Few of us know what others are doing, and we rarely have a chance to meet up. ARCH has over the years tried to find out contact details, in part due to work organising the Highland Archaeology Festival over the last 7 years on behalf of Highland Council Historic Environment Team. It seemed time to organise a day when we could meet up, promote our activities, and share problems and successes. T ..read more