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From the Highland Archives: Mansion was ‘plain and unassuming’


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A copy of Archibald Simpson’s plans of Boath House, Auldearn.
A copy of Archibald Simpson’s plans of Boath House, Auldearn.

TODAY we turn to the Parish of Auldearn, with a village of the same name being the main populated area within the parish, writes the Highland Archive Centre's Jennifer Johnstone.

The parish is bordered on the north by the Moray Firth, on the east by the parish of Dyke and Moy, on the south by Ardclach and on the west by Nairn.

The Ordnance Survey map of 1905 shows that Auldearn village contains features familiar to many Scottish towns and villages of the early 20th century: church, graveyard, manse, school, smithy, post office, police station, corn mill and saw mill, with a high street running through the middle of the settlement.

Unusually, Auldearn village features a Dooket Hill. According to the Ordnance Survey Name Book for Nairnshire (these books provide information about places and buildings named on the first edition Ordnance Survey maps), a local man, Mr Thomas Fraser, explained in 1869 that the Dooket (or Dovecote) was once known locally by a different name:

“It was usually called Castlehill... that it was a place where felons etc were tried by a court of justice, and that where the Dovecot now stands, there were stone steps down to dark vaults or dungeon below and that when any persons were found guilty they were passed down into this place to bide their term of punishment.”

Another local landmark shown on the same OS map as the Dooket, seen nestling amongst woodland at the end of a tree-lined driveway is Boath House which was built around 1830 for Sir James Dunbar. The architect of this Nairnshire country house was Archibald Simpson. It is also documented in the OS Name Book for Nairnshire (1869) and is described as follows:

“A large square mansion three stories high with an Ionic front in all other respect plain and unassuming and quite modern, the out offices are adjacent and in keeping with the mansion modern and in good repair the property and residence of Sir James Dunbar Bart. [Baronet].”

Extract from the Nairnshire Ordnance Survey map, sheet II.13, 1905.
Extract from the Nairnshire Ordnance Survey map, sheet II.13, 1905.

OS Name Books can provide lots of fascinating information about particular buildings or areas. For example in the same volume that describes Boath House, we see that Sir James Dunbar also owned The Whitehorse Inn in Auldearn village, a corn mill and cottages, various farm dwellings and outhouses as well as ground which was the site of the Battle of Auldearn of 1645”

“The extent of this Battlefield … was pointed out by the only reliable authority now living in the parish Viz Mr. Thomas Fraser… when all of it is made arable in the process of which there has not been an acre but what human bones have been dug up.”

The land between Boath House and the village of Auldearn on the 1905 map is now dissected by the A96 – the main road between Inverness and Aberdeen.

- Due to the current Covid-19 outbreak the Highland Archive Centre is closed until further notice. However, it is offering a series of talks on its Facebook page and YouTube channel at 11am each Thursday. The ‘Learn with Lorna’ series covers a variety of topics; the next looking at authors in the collections.

Related news: From the Highland Archives: Poor records can be a rich source


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